Probably few if any of the vessels which Captain Dumaresq passed hove-to or under short canvas were sailing under the American flag. It is worthy of note that the Great Britain was at that time twenty-six years old, having been built by Brown & Bell for the New York and Liverpool packet service in 1824, and of course, was by no means a clipper.
CHAPTER V
TWO EARLY CLIPPER SHIP COMMANDERS
CAPTAIN ROBERT H. WATERMAN, the first commander of the Sea Witch, had been known for some years among the shipping community of New York as an exceptionally skilful seaman and navigator, but he first began to attract public attention about 1844 by some remarkably fast voyages in the ship Natchez. Captain Waterman was born in the city of New York, March 4, 1808, and at the age of twelve shipped on board of a vessel bound for China. After working through the grades of ordinary and able seaman, and third, second, and chief mate on board of various vessels, he sailed for a number of voyages as mate with Captain Charles H. Marshall in the Black Ball packet ship Britannia between New York and Liverpool. At that time he was counted one of the smartest mates sailing out of New York, and was noted for keeping the Britannia in fine shape, as well as for his ability in maintaining proper order and discipline among the steerage passengers and crew, who were always a source of anxiety and trouble to packet-ship captains. When his vessel was bound to the westward in 1831, one of the sailors fell overboard from aloft during a heavy gale, and Mr. Waterman saved the man’s life at the risk of his own. The cabin passengers of the Britannia presented him with a substantial testimonial in appreciation of his humane and gallant conduct. At this time he was twenty-three years old. Two years later he was promoted to captain, and in this capacity he made five voyages round the globe.
In 1843 he took command of the Natchez. This ship, as we have seen in Chapter III., was one of the full-pooped New Orleans packets, and was built by Isaac Webb in 1831. Captain Waterman took her around Cape Horn to the west coast of South America, thence across the Pacific to Canton, where he loaded a cargo of tea for New York, and made the passage home in 94 days and the voyage round the globe in 9 months and 26 days. In 1844 Captain Waterman sailed again in the Natchez from New York for Valparaiso and made the passage in 71 days, thence to Callao in 8 days, and to Hong-kong in 54 days. She again loaded tea for New York and sailed from Canton January 15, 1845, passed Java Head on the 26th, and 39 days out was off the Cape of Good Hope, crossed the equator 61 days out, arriving in New York April 3d, 78 days from Canton, a total distance of 13,955 miles. Her run from the equator to New York in 17 days, and indeed, this whole passage, was most remarkable, as the Natchez during her packet days had established the reputation of being an uncommonly slow ship. Captain Waterman received a grand ovation in New York upon this record passage from China, and it was suggested that he had brought the old hooker home by some route unknown to other navigators. In 1845-46 Captain Waterman made one more voyage to China in the Natchez, from New York direct to Hong-kong in 104 days, and returned to New York in 83 days.
A series of voyages such as these, by a ship of the type and character of the Natchez, would probably have established the reputation of any one commanding her, and when we consider that “Bob� Waterman, for so he was known, was at this time a young captain of an unusually attractive personality, it is not difficult to understand the pride and admiration with which he was regarded by his friends, of whom he had many, both in New York and in the various foreign ports to which he had sailed. The owners of the Natchez, Howland & Aspinwall, were so favorably impressed not only by his ability as a seaman and navigator, but by his loyalty to their interests, that, as we have seen, they built the clipper ship Sea Witch for him in 1846. While she was building, Captain Waterman married Cordelia, a daughter of David Sterling, of Bridgeport, and Mrs. Waterman was present as a bride when the ship was launched.
In 1849, Captain Waterman resigned from the Sea Witch to take the Pacific Mail steamship Northerner from New York to San Francisco. During the three years that he had commanded the Sea Witch, she had made a large amount of money for her owners, and Captain Waterman had added to his reputation,—so much so, indeed, that certain good people began to say unpleasant things of him. It was alleged that Captain Waterman carried sail too hard, that he exceeded the bounds of prudence in this respect, and kept padlocks on the topsail sheets and rackings on the topsail halliards fore and aft; also that he maintained a standard of discipline far more severe than was necessary.
It is probable that Captain Waterman did carry sail rather hard—most American captains who wanted to get anywhere in those days usually did—and as to the padlocks and rackings, more than one captain used these precautions to prevent villainous or cowardly sailors from letting go sheets and halliards by the run, when according to their ideas the ship had too much canvas on her. The fact, however, remains that in the eighteen years during which Captain Waterman commanded various ships, he never lost a spar or carried away rigging of any importance, and never called on underwriters for one dollar of loss or damage. The record shows that six of the men before the mast sailed with him upon all his voyages in the Natchez and the Sea Witch, a rare occurrence at that period, or at any other time of which we have knowledge, and creditable alike to the sailors, the ships, and their commander.
The truth is that Captain Waterman was a humane, conscientious, high-minded man, who never spared himself nor any one else when a duty was to be performed. There are, and always have been, lazy, incompetent, mutinous sailors, a type of men that Captain Waterman detested. They found no comfort in sailing with him, and were glad when the voyage was ended, so that they might scramble ashore and relate their woes to the sympathetic legal “gents� who were usually to be found hanging about Pier 9, East River, when the Sea Witch was reported coming up the bay. We shall hear more of Captain Waterman and his crew on board of the Challenge in a later chapter.
The celebrated clipper-ship captain, Nathaniel Brown Palmer, the first commander of the Paul Jones, Houqua, Samuel Russell, and Oriental, was born in the pretty town of Stonington, on Long Island Sound in 1799, and came from distinguished colonial ancestry. His grandfather’s only brother fell mortally wounded at the battle of Groton Heights in 1771, while his father was an eminent lawyer and a man of marked ability.
At the age of fourteen or just as the War of 1812 was fairly under way, Nathaniel shipped on board of a coasting vessel which ran to ports between Maine and New York, and continued in this service until he was eighteen, when he was appointed second mate of the brig Hersilia, bound down somewhere about Cape Horn on a sealing voyage.