When the captains of these clippers, dressed in "lustrous, straw-colored, raw-silk suits," paraded the water front of New York, they were more admired and envied by the loungers than any prince or potentate on earth. They were the kings of the sea by right of conquest. Imagine what Captain Waterman would have done if told that he reigned by grace of "a system of national protection deliberately initiated in 1789!"
In 1849 the British government, in a desperate determination to place British shipping ahead of American in quality as well as quantity, repealed the old navigation laws. British merchants were not only permitted to buy American ships, but American ships were permitted to enter all trades to the United Kingdom. The British ship-builders declared their business would be ruined; and the building of the old-style wooden ships was ruined. The ship-owners, too, saw disaster staring them in the face, and, for a time, there was reason for their fears. For where the British ships in the tea trade received from £3 to £4 per ton (50 cubic feet) from Canton to London, the American clippers received six and even more.
The little Baltimore clipper Architect, having made a run from Canton to London in 107 days, beating the fleet by about a week, she was paid £8 a ton when next she applied for a cargo of new-crop teas. The ordinary ships were glad to get the common £4.
In the meantime the California territory was acquired from Mexico by the treaty proclaimed July 4, 1848. Placer gold had already been discovered in El Dorado county (January 24), and when official reports confirmed the wide-spread rumors of the "find," a migration of gold-seekers such as the world had never seen was begun.
The growth of population in the territory was phenomenal, and the growth at once created an insistent demand for many products of civilization, especially for such things as were needed by miners and town-builders; for the whole region was a wilderness. This demand was backed by gold washed from the placers, and the prices seem now almost beyond belief.
"On the 1st of July, 1849, lumber was selling at San Francisco for $500 per 1000 feet. A better quality of lumber could be purchased in New York for $12—in Maine for $10." (Ex. Doc. 2, 32 Cong. 1 sess. p. 306.) At the same time, (Phil. Quar. Reg., Dec. 1849), eggs were selling as high as $2 a dozen, hens for $4 each, butter at $1.50 a pound, and potatoes, by the pound, 6 to 8 cents; turnips and cabbages still higher.
The merchants made haste to forward the needed supplies; thousands of eager gold-hunters sought passage on the outbound ships, and the one demand of the merchant and the passenger was for speed.
The number of ships obtainable being inadequate, the merchants went to the shipyards, and it was then that the most famous of all the American clippers were built.
The records of some of the old ships that were at once put into the California trade were not bad. The Colonel Fremont reached San Francisco after a passage of 127 days, and the Grey Eagle in 117. But the Flying Cloud, built by Donald McKay of Boston, and sailed by Captain Josiah P. Creesy, of Marblehead, in 1851, made the passage in 89 days, and in one day covered 374 sea miles. The length of this passage is given as 84 days in some accounts, but A Description of the New Clipper Great Republic, a pamphlet printed at Eastburn's Press, Boston, in 1853, for Donald McKay, says the time was 89 days. This pamphlet also says that the outlook for profits led McKay to build the Sovereign of the Seas, a ship of 2400 tons, and then the largest, longest, and sharpest merchant ship in the world. "Contrary to the advice of his best friends, he built her on his own account; he embarked all he was worth in her, for no merchant in this vicinity would risk capital in such a vessel, as she was considered too large and costly for any trade.... To the surprise of even those who knew him best, he played the merchant and loaded her himself. And well he was rewarded. He not only sold her on his own terms, but her performances exceeded his expectations."
Captain Lachlan McKay, brother of Donald, commanded this famous clipper. In August, 1851, she left New York for San Francisco, and until well beyond the Horn made record speed; but off Valparaiso, while the captain was driving her through a gale by night, an extra heavy squall carried away her fore and main topmasts. Captain McKay was sitting in an arm-chair on the quarter-deck at the time, and that chair was his only bed for the next two weeks. During that time new masts were made and got on end, the yards were crossed and sail was made. She reached San Francisco in 102 days from New York in spite of the disaster.