The packet captain, no matter what his age might be, was usually spoken of as “the old man,� a title frequently embellished by the crew with vigorous epithets, which seemed to them appropriate, but which must now, I fear, be left to the imagination of the reader. Few if any Americans sailed regularly before the mast on board of these vessels, the crews being largely composed of the most abandoned scoundrels out of British and continental jails. I shall have something further to say concerning these interesting beings in connection with their exploits on board of the California clipper ships.
Among the famous New York packet captains, and there were many of them, were Charles H. Marshall, of the South America, James Cropper, and Britannia; N. B. Palmer, of the Siddons, Garrick, Huntsville, and Hibernia, and his brother, Alexander, later of the Garrick; F. A. De Peyster, of the Columbus and Ontario; John Collins, an uncle of E. K. Collins, of the Shakespeare; John Eldridge, of the Liverpool, and his brother Asa, of the Roscius, and Oliver, another brother, who was mate with Captain John; Ezra Nye, of the Independence and Henry Clay; William Skiddy, an older brother of Francis Skiddy, of the New World; Benjamin Trask, of the Virginia, Jamestown, and Saratoga; Joseph Delano, of the Columbia and Patrick Henry; John Britton, of the Constitution, later United States consul at Southampton; Ira Bursley, of the Hottinger; Philip Woodhouse, of the Queen of the West; James A. Wooton, of the Havre; William H. Allen, of the Virginia, Waterloo, West Point, and Constellation; E. E. Morgan, of the Hudson and Victoria; John Johnston, of the Rhone and Isaac Bell; and of a later period, Robert C. Cutting, of the Adelaide; and Samuel Samuels, of the Dreadnought.
It required an unusual combination of qualities to command these Western Ocean packet ships successfully. Above all things it was necessary that the captains should be thorough seamen and navigators; also that they should be men of robust health and great physical endurance, as their duties often kept them on deck for days and nights together in storm, cold, and fog. Then there were frequently desperate characters among the crew and steerage passengers, who required to be handled with moral courage and physical force, while the cabin passengers were usually gentlemen and gentlewomen of good breeding, accustomed to courtesy and politeness, which they expected to find in the captains with whom they sailed. These requirements evolved a remarkable type of men, hearty, bluff, and jovial, without coarseness, who would never be mistaken for anything but gentlemen.
The packet mates, having no social duties on shipboard to distract their attention, were able to devote their time and energies to improving the morals and manners of the crew, and it was on board the Black Ball liners that “belaying pin soup� and “handspike hash,� so stimulating to honest toil, were first introduced for the benefit of mutinous or slothful mariners.
Plenty of sail was carried by the packet ships
The “Montezuma�
of this period—square lower, topmast and topgallant studding sails, skysails set on sliding gunter masts which were struck in the winter time, with three reefs in the topsails and single reefs in the topgallantsails. The racing was fast and furious. In 1837 a match was made between the Black Ball liner Columbus, 597 tons, Captain De Peyster, and the Sheridan, Captain Russell, of the Dramatic Line, then on her first voyage, for a stake of $10,000 a side, from New York to Liverpool, play or pay. The Sheridan, though only 895 tons, carried a crew of forty picked men before the mast, with regular pay of $25 a month, and the promise of a bonus of $50 each, provided their ship won the race. The ships sailed together from New York on Thursday, February 2, 1837, and the Columbus won the race in sixteen days, followed two days later by the Sheridan. This is the first ocean match across the Atlantic of which any record has been preserved, though, of course, there had been many informal races long before.
The Isaac Bell, commanded by Captain John Johnston, made three voyages from Havre to New York in less than eighteen days each, one being in the month of January, which is about the hardest month in the twelve for a ship bound to the westward. The Independence, 734 tons, built by Smith & Dimon in 1834, for a number of years when commanded by Captain Ezra Nye, took the President’s message to England, her sailing day being fixed for the 6th of March for that purpose. She more than once made the passage from New York to Liverpool in fourteen days. In November, 1846, the Yorkshire, Captain Bailey, made the passage from Liverpool to New York in sixteen days. This is believed to be the fastest passage ever made from Liverpool to the westward by a packet ship. The Montezuma, 1070 tons, and the Patrick Henry, 997 tons, the Southampton, 1273 tons, built by Westervelt & Mackay, in 1849, also the St. Andrew, Captain William C. Thompson, of Robert Kermit’s Line, all made the passage from New York to Liverpool in fifteen days.
It should, however, be remembered that these packet ships, running regularly across the Atlantic for many years, necessarily at times encountered favorable conditions of wind and weather; whereas, a single ship making the passage occasionally, as did the clipper ships in later years, might not find so favorable a slant in a lifetime. None of the packet ships that made these remarkable passages could average more than twelve knots for twenty-four hours, and the utmost limit of their speed under the most favorable conditions was not more than fourteen knots, if as much. Most of these ships, however, made the passage from New York to Liverpool at one time or another in sixteen days, and there were few that did not at least once make the run in seventeen days. The secret of the speed of these ships was that they were commanded by men who kept them moving night and day, in all sorts of weather, and never let up on their ships or crews from the time they cast off from the wharf at New York until they ran their lines ashore on the pier-head at Liverpool. While it is true that the New York packet ships were by no means clippers, still, their models and rig were admirably adapted to the work which they had to perform. It was a splendid service and a fine prelude to the clipper ship era.