One of the objects of the repeal of the Navigation Laws was to enable British ship-owners to become the ocean carriers of the world, and to remove every restraint as to where they should build or buy their ships. This step was a natural sequence to the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, and the glorious dawn of Free Trade, by which every British subject was permitted to purchase whatever he required in the best and cheapest market, and so was able to work at a moderate wage, and to have continuous employment. Thus Great Britain, with few natural advantages, became the great workshop of the world and controlled every market upon the globe in which her manufactures were not excluded by the barrier of Protection. Even from these countries she reaped a decided benefit, for they were so hampered by Protection, which increased the expense of living, created high rates of wages for labor but with uncertain employment, and brought about increased cost of production, whether of ships or merchandise, that it became impossible for them to compete in the open markets of the world, and these avenues of trade were left open for Great Britain to exploit at her pleasure.
Such was the belief of the great leader, Richard Cobden, and his brilliant colleagues. They were convinced that if British merchants were to carry on the commerce of Great Britain they must do so untrammelled as to where they bought or built their ships; they realized the fact that cheaper and better wooden sailing vessels—then the ocean cargo carriers of the world—were being built in the United States than could be constructed in Great Britain. (Indeed, as we shall presently see, the finest, largest, and fastest ships owned or chartered in Great Britain between the years 1850 and 1857, came from the shipyards of the United States.) They fully recognized the importance of the home ship-building industry, and did everything possible to encourage it, but they also perceived that ship-owning is of vastly more importance to a nation than ship-building, and that fleets of ships are not commerce but only the instruments with which commerce performs its work; likewise, that the nation owning the best and cheapest ships, no matter where or by whom built, must and will, other things being equal, do not only most of its own carrying trade, but also a considerable portion of that of other nations. These men were not willing any longer to sacrifice the carrying trade of their country in order that a few comparatively unimportant ship-builders, grown incompetent through long years of monopoly, might continue to thrive at the expense of the nation.
No people excel the English in courage and resource in times of national trouble, and they had long before this fought battles for freedom—freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of the slave, freedom to worship God,—and now the final contest for freedom, the freedom of trade, had been bravely fought and won. The result, of course, was not immediate, as it required several years to recover from the evil effects of two centuries of Protection. The fruits of victories for freedom rarely ripen quickly, and in this instance the records show that the increase of British shipping for the year before the repeal of the Navigation Laws had been 393,955 tons, while during the year following there had been a decrease of 180,576 tons; also that foreign vessels arriving from foreign ports increased from 75,278 tons to 364,587 tons in these years. It was therefore natural that there should be a feeling of despondency throughout Great Britain among those who had opposed the repeal, for they thought that their fears were being realized, and that the over-sea carrying trade, which they had regarded as their own, was being taken from them. In this hour of gloom the stout-hearted ship-owners of London and Liverpool resolved that England should again become Mistress of the Sea, and so competition, the stimulus needed to rouse their latent abilities, was the instrument of their salvation.
The first American ship to carry a cargo of tea from China to England after the repeal of the Navigation Laws was the clipper Oriental, of 1003 tons, built for A. A. Low & Brother in 1849, by Jacob Bell, who continued in the ship-building business after the firm of Brown & Bell was dissolved in 1848. This ship’s length was 185 feet, breadth 36 feet, depth 21 feet. She sailed from New York on her first voyage, commanded by Captain N. B. Palmer, September 14, 1849, and arrived at Hong-kong by the Eastern passages in 109 days. She discharged, took on board a full cargo of tea for New York, sailed January 30, 1850, and arrived April 21st, 81 days’ passage. This was Captain Palmer’s last command, though he lived many years, as we have seen, to enjoy the fruits of his toil upon the sea.
The Oriental sailed on her second voyage from New York for China, May 19, 1850, under the command of Captain Theodore Palmer, a younger brother of Captain Nat, and was 25 days to the equator; she passed the meridian of the Cape of Good Hope 45 days out, Java Head 71 days out, and arrived at Hong-kong, August 8th, 81 days from New York. She was at once chartered through Russell & Co. to load a cargo of tea for London at £6 per ton of 40 cubic feet, while British ships were waiting for cargoes for London at £3:10 per ton of 50 cubic feet. She sailed August 28th, and beat down the China Sea against a strong southwest monsoon in 21 days to Anjer, arrived off the Lizard in 91 days, and was moored in the West India Docks, London, 97 days from Hong-kong—a passage from China never before equalled in point of speed, especially against the southwest monsoon, and rarely surpassed since. She delivered 1600 tons of tea, and her freight from Hong-kong amounted to £9600, or some $48,000. Her first cost ready for sea was $70,000. From the date of her first sailing from New York, September 14, 1849, to arrival at London, December 3, 1850, the Oriental had sailed a distance of 67,000 miles, and had during that time been at sea 367 days, an average in all weathers of 183 miles per day.
Throngs of people visited the West India Docks to look at the Oriental. They certainly saw a beautiful ship; every line of her long, black hull indicated power and speed; her tall raking masts and skysail-yards towered above the spars of the shipping in the docks; her white cotton sails were neatly furled under bunt, quarter, and yardarm gaskets; while her topmast, topgallant, and royal studdingsail booms and long, heavy, lower studdingsail booms swung in along her rails, gave an idea of the enormous spread of canvas held in reserve for light and moderate leading winds; her blocks, standing and running rigging were neatly fitted to stand great stress and strain, but with no unnecessary top-hamper, or weight aloft. On deck everything was for use; the spare spars, scraped bright and varnished, were neatly lashed along the waterways; the inner side of the bulwarks, the rails and the deck-houses were painted pure white; the hatch combings, skylights, pin-rails, and companions were of Spanish mahogany; the narrow planks of her clear pine deck, with the gratings and ladders, were scrubbed and holystoned to the whiteness of cream; the brass capstan heads, bells, belaying pins, gangway stanchions, and brasswork about the wheel, binnacle, and skylights were of glittering brightness. Throughout she was a triumph of the shipwright’s and seaman’s toil and skill.
No ship like the Oriental had even been seen in England, and the ship-owners of London were constrained to admit that they had nothing to compare with her in speed, beauty of model, rig, or construction. It is not too much to say that the arrival of this vessel in London with her cargo of tea in this crisis in 1850, aroused almost as much apprehension and excitement in Great Britain as was created by the memorable Tea Party held in Boston harbor in 1773. The Admiralty obtained permission to take off her lines in dry dock; the Illustrated London News published her portrait, not a very good one by the way; and the Times honored her arrival by a leader, which ended with these brave, wise words:
“The rapid increase of population in the United States, augmented by an annual immigration of nearly three hundred thousand from these isles, is a fact that forces itself on the notice and interest of the most unobservant and uncurious. All these promise to develop the resources of the United States to such an extent as to compel us to a competition as difficult as it is unavoidable. 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. It is a father who runs a race with his son. A fell necessity constrains us and we must not be beat. Let our ship-builders and employers take warning in time. There will always be an abundant supply of vessels, good enough and fast enough for short voyages. The coal-trade can take care of itself, for it will always be a refuge for the destitute. But we want fast vessels for the long voyages, which otherwise will fall into American hands. It is fortunate that the Navigation Laws have been repealed in time to destroy these false and unreasonable expectations, which might have lulled the ardor of British competition. We now all start together with a fair field and no favor. The American captain can call at London, and the British captain can pursue his voyage to New York. Who can complain? Not we. We trust that our countrymen will not be beaten; but if they should be, we shall know that they deserve it.�
CHAPTER VII
THE RUSH FOR CALIFORNIA—A SAILING DAY
THE world has seldom witnessed so gigantic a migration of human beings, by land and sea, from every quarter of the globe, as that which poured into California in 1848 and the years following. San Francisco, from a drowsy, Mexican trading station, composed of a cluster of some fifty mud huts, adobe dwellings, and hide houses, situated upon a magnificent bay with lofty mountains in the distance, occasionally enlivened by the visit of a New Bedford or Nantucket whale ship in need of wood and water, or a Boston hide droger which took away tallow, hides, and horns, suddenly became one of the great seaports of the world.