Chapter I (2)

It may be justly doubted whether history has ever known a race of men so hardy, so self-reliant, so adaptable to the most complex situations, so determined to compel success, and so resigned in the presence of inevitable failure, as the early American sea captains. Their lives were spent in a ceaseless conflict with the forces of nature and of men. They had to deal with a mutinous crew one day and with a typhoon the next. If by skillful seamanship a piratical schooner was avoided in the reaches of the Spanish Main, the resources of diplomacy would be taxed the next day to persuade some English or French colonial governor not to seize the cargo that had escaped the pirates. The captain must be a seaman, a sea-soldier, a sea-lawyer, and a sea-merchant, shut off from his principals by space which no electric current then annihilated. He must study markets, sell his cargo at the most profitable point, buy what his prophetic vision suggested would sell profitably, and sell half a dozen intermediate cargoes before returning, and even dispose of the vessel herself, if gain would result. His experience was almost as much commercial as nautical, and many of the shipping merchants who formed the aristocracy of old New York and Boston, mounted from the forecastle to the cabin, thence to the counting-room.

In a paper on the maritime trade of Salem, the Rev. George Bachelor tells of the conditions of this early seafaring, the sort of men engaged in it, and the stimulus it offered to all their faculties:

"After a century of comparative quiet, the citizens of the
little town were suddenly dispersed to every part of the
Oriental world, and to every nook of barbarism which had a
market and a shore. The borders of the commercial world received
sudden enlargement, and the boundaries of the intellectual world
underwent similar expansion. The reward of enterprise might be
the discovery of an island in which wild pepper enough to load a
ship might be had almost for the asking, or of forests where
precious gems had no commercial value, or spice islands
unvisited and unvexed by civilization. Every ship-master and
every mariner returning on a richly loaded ship was the
custodian of valuable information. In those days crews were made
up of Salem boys, every one of whom expected to become an East
Indian merchant. When a captain was asked at Manila how he
contrived to find his way in the teeth of a northeast monsoon by
mere dead reckoning, he replied that he had a crew of twelve
men, any one of whom could take and work a lunar observation as
well, for all practical purposes, as Sir Isaac Newton himself.

"When, in 1816, George Coggeshall coasted the Mediterranean in
the 'Cleopatra's Barge,' a magnificent yacht of 197 tons, which
excited the wonder even of the Genoese, the black cook, who had
once sailed with Bowditch, was found to be as competent to keep
a ship's reckoning as any of the officers.

"Rival merchants sometimes drove the work of preparation night
and day, when virgin markets had favors to be won, and ships
which set out for unknown ports were watched when they slipped
their cables and sailed away by night, and dogged for months on
the high seas, in the hopes of discovering a secret, well kept
by the owner and crew. Every man on board was allowed a certain
space for his own little venture. People in other pursuits, not
excepting the owner's minister, entrusted their savings to the
supercargo, and watched eagerly the result of their adventure.
This great mental activity, the profuse stores of knowledge
brought by every ship's crew, and distributed, together with
India shawls, blue china, and unheard-of curiosities from every
savage shore, gave the community a rare alertness of intellect."

The spirit in which young fellows, scarcely attained to years of maturity, met and overcame the dangers of the deep is vividly depicted in Captain George Coggeshall's narrative of his first face-to-face encounter with death. He was in the schooner "Industry," off the Island of Teneriffe, during a heavy gale.

"Captain K. told me I had better go below, and that he would keep an outlook and take a little tea biscuit on deck. I had entered the cabin, when I felt a terrible shock. I ran to the companion-way, when I saw a ship athwart our bows. At that moment our foremast went by the board, carrying with it our main topmast. In an instant the two vessels separated, and we were left a perfect wreck. The ship showed a light for a few moments and then disappeared, leaving us to our fate. When we came to examine our situation, we found our bowsprit gone close to the knight-heads." An investigation showed that the collision had left the "Industry" in a grievous state, while the gale, ever increasing, blew directly on shore. But the sailors fought sturdily for life. "To retard the schooner's drift, we kept the wreck of the foremast, bowsprit, sails, spars, etc., fast by the bowsprit shrouds and other ropes, so that we drifted to leeward but about two miles the hour. To secure the mainmast was now the first object. I therefore took with me one of the best of the crew, and carried the end of a rope cable with us up to the mainmast head, and clenched it round the mast, while it was badly springing. We then took the cable to the windlass and hove taut, and thus effectually secured the mast.... We were then drifting directly on shore, where the cliffs were rocky, abrupt, and almost perpendicular, and were perhaps almost 1,000 feet high. At each blast of lightning we could see the surf break, whilst we heard the awful roar of the sea dashing and breaking against the rocks and caverns of this iron-bound island.

"When I went below I found the captain in the act of going to bed; and as near as I can recollect, the following dialogue took place:

"'Well, Captain K., what shall we do next? We have now about six hours to pass before daylight; and, according to my calculation, we have only about three hours more drift. Still, before that time there may, perhaps, be some favorable change.'

"He replied: 'Mr. C., we have done all we can, and can do nothing more. I am resigned to my fate, and think nothing can save us.'

"I replied: 'Perhaps you are right; still, I am resolved to struggle to the last. I am too young to die; I am only twenty-one years of age, and have a widowed mother, three brothers, and a sister looking to me for support and sympathy. No, sir, I will struggle and persevere to the last.'

"'Ah,' said he, 'what can you do? Our boat will not live five minutes in the surf, and you have no other resource.'

"'I will take the boat,' said I, 'and when she fills I will cling to a spar. I will not die until my strength is exhausted and I can breathe no longer.' Here the conversation ended, when the captain covered his head with a blanket. I then wrote the substance of our misfortune in the log-book, and also a letter to my mother; rolled them up in a piece of tarred canvas; and, assisted by the carpenter, put the package into a tight keg, thinking that this might probably be thrown on shore, and thus our friends might perhaps know of our end."

Men who face Death thus sturdily are apt to overcome him. The gale lessened, the ship was patched up, the craven captain resumed command, and in two weeks' time the "Industry" sailed, sorely battered, into Santa Cruz, to find that she had been given up as lost, and her officers and crew "were looked upon as so many men risen from the dead." Young Coggeshall lived to follow the sea until gray-haired and weather-beaten, to die in his bed at last, and to tell the story of his eighty voyages in two volumes of memoirs, now growing very rare. Before he was sixteen he had made the voyage to Cadiz--a port now moldering, but which once was one of the great portals for the commerce of the world. In his second voyage, while lying in the harbor of Gibraltar, he witnessed one of the almost every-day dangers to which American sailors of that time were exposed:

"While we were lying in this port, one morning at daylight we
heard firing at a distance. I took a spy-glass, and from aloft
could clearly see three gunboats engaged with a large ship. It
was a fine, clear morning, with scarcely wind enough to ruffle
the glass-like surface of the water. During the first hour or
two of this engagement the gunboats had an immense advantage;
being propelled both by sails and oars, they were enabled to
choose their own position. While the ship lay becalmed and
unmanageable they poured grape and canister shot into her stern
and bows like hailstones. At this time the ship's crew could not
bring a single gun to bear upon them, and all they could do was
to use their small arms through the ports and over the rails.
Fortunately for the crew, the ship had thick and high bulwarks,
which protected them from the fire of the enemy, so that while
they were hid and screened by the boarding cloths, they could
use their small arms to great advantage. At this stage of the
action, while the captain, with his speaking-trumpet under his
left arm, was endeavoring to bring one of his big guns to bear
on one of the gunboats, a grapeshot passed through the port and
trumpet and entered his chest near his shoulder-blade. The chief
mate carried him below and laid him upon a mattress on the cabin
floor. For a moment it seemed to dampen the ardor of the men;
but it was but for an instant. The chief mate (I think his name
was Randall), a gallant young man from Nantucket, then took the
command, rallied, and encouraged the men to continue the action
with renewed obstinacy and vigor. At this time a lateen-rigged
vessel, the largest of the three privateers, was preparing to
make a desperate attempt to board the ship on the larboard
quarter, and, with nearly all his men on the forecastle and long
bowsprit, were ready to take the final leap.

"In order to meet and frustrate the design of the enemy, the
mate of the ship had one of the quarter-deck guns loaded with
grape and canister shot; he then ordered all the ports on this
quarter to be shut, so that the gun could not be seen; and thus
were both parties prepared when the privateer came boldly up
within a few yards of the ship's lee quarter. The captain, with
a threatening flourish of his sword, cried out with a loud
voice, in broken English: 'Strike, you damned rascal, or I will
put you all to death.' At this moment a diminutive-looking man
on board the 'Louisa,' with a musket, took deliberate aim
through one of the waist ports, and shot him dead. Instantly the
gun was run out and discharged upon the foe with deadly effect,
so that the remaining few on board the privateer, amazed and
astounded, were glad to give up the conflict and get off the
best way they could.

"Soon after this a breeze sprung up, so that they could work
their great guns to some purpose. I never shall forget the
moment when I saw the Star-Spangled Banner blow out and wave
gracefully in the wind, through the smoke. I also at the same
moment saw with pleasure the three gunboats sailing and rowing
away toward the land to make their escape. When the ship drew
near the port, all the boats from the American shipping
voluntarily went to assist in bringing her to anchor. She proved
to be the letter-of-marque ship 'Louisa,' of Philadelphia.

"I went with our captain on board of her, and we there learned
that, with the exception of the captain, not a man had been
killed or wounded. The ship was terribly cut up and crippled in
her sails and rigging--lifts and braces shot away; her stern was
literally riddled like a grater, and both large and small shot,
in great numbers, had entered her hull and were sticking to her
sides. How the officers and crew escaped unhurt is almost
impossible to conceive. The poor captain was immediately taken
on shore, but only survived his wound a few days. He had a
public funeral, and was followed to the grave by all the
Americans in Gibraltar, and very many of the officers of the
garrison and inhabitants of the town.

"The ship had a rich cargo of coffee, sugar, and India goods on
board, and I believe was bound for Leghorn. The gunboats
belonged to Algeciras and fought under French colors, but were
probably manned by the debased of all nations. I can form no
idea how many were killed or wounded on board the gunboats, but
from the great number of men on board, and from the length of
the action, there must have been great slaughter. Neither can I
say positively how long the engagement lasted; but I should
think at least from three to four hours. To the chief mate too
much credit can not be given for saving the ship after the
captain was shot."

This action occurred in 1800, and the assailants fought under French colors, though the United States were at peace with France. It was fought within easy eyesight of Gibraltar, and therefore in British waters; but no effort was made by the British men-of-war--always plentiful there--to maintain the neutrality of the port. For sailors to be robbed or murdered, or to fight with desperation to avert robbery and murder, was then only a commonplace of the sea. Men from the safety of the adjoining shore only looked on in calm curiosity, as nowadays men look on indifferently to see the powerful freebooter of the not less troubled business sea rob, impoverish, and perhaps drive down to untimely death others who only ask to be permitted to make their little voyages unvexed by corsairs.

From a little book of memoirs of Captain Richard J. Cleveland, the curious observer can learn what it was to belong to a seafaring family in the golden days of American shipping. His was a Salem stock. His father, in 1756, when but sixteen years old, was captured by a British press-gang in the streets of Boston, and served for years in the British navy. For this compulsory servitude he exacted full compensation in later years by building and commanding divers privateers to prey upon the commerce of England. His three sons all became sailors, taking to the water like young ducks. A characteristic note of the cosmopolitanism of the young New Englander of that day is sounded in the most matter-of-fact fashion by young Cleveland in a letter from Havre: "I can't help loving home, though I think a young man ought to be at home in any part of the globe." And at home everywhere Captain Cleveland certainly was. All his life was spent in wandering over the Seven Seas, in ships of every size, from a 25-ton cutter to a 400-ton Indiaman. In those days of navigation laws, blockades, hostile cruisers, hungry privateers, and bloodthirsty pirates, the smaller craft was often the better, for it was wiser to brave nature's moods in a cockle-shell than to attract men's notice in a great ship. Captain Cleveland's voyages from Havre to the Cape of Good Hope, in a 45-ton cutter; from Calcutta to the Isle of France, in a 25-ton sloop; and Captain Coggeshall's voyage around Cape Horn in an unseaworthy pilot-boat are typical exploits of Yankee seamanship. We see the same spirit manifested occasionally nowadays when some New Englander crosses the ocean in a dory, or circumnavigates the world alone in a 30-foot sloop. But these adventures are apt to end ignominiously in a dime museum.

A noted sailor in his time was Captain Benjamin I. Trask, master of many ships, ruler of many deeps, who died in harness in 1871, and for whom the flags on the shipping in New York Bay were set at half-mast. An appreciative writer, Mr. George W. Sheldon, in _Harper's Magazine_, tells this story to show what manner of man he was; it was on the ship "Saratoga," from Havre to New York, with a crew among whom were several recently liberated French convicts:

"The first day out the new crew were very troublesome, owing in
part, doubtless, to the absence of the mate, who was ill in bed
and who died after a few hours. Suddenly the second mate, son of
the commander, heard his father call out, 'Take hold of the
wheel,' and going forward, saw him holding a sailor at arm's
length. The mutineer was soon lodged in the cockpit; but all
hands--the watch below and the watch on deck--came aft as if
obeying a signal, with threatening faces and clenched fists. The
captain, methodical and cool, ordered his son to run a line
across the deck between him and the rebellious crew, and to arm
the steward and the third mate.

"'Now go forward and get to work', he said to the gang, who
immediately made a demonstration to break the line. 'The first
man who passes that rope,' added the captain, 'I will shoot. I
am going to call you one by one; if two come at a time I will
shoot both.'

"The first to come forward was a big fellow in a red shirt. He
had hesitated to advance when called; but the 'I will give you
one more invitation, sir,' of the captain furnished him with the
requisite resolution. So large were his wrists that ordinary
shackles were too small to go around them, and ankle-shackles
took their place. Escorted by the second and third mates to the
cabin, he was made to lie flat on his stomach, while staples
were driven through the chains of his handcuffs to pin him down.
After eighteen of the mutineers had been similarly treated, the
captain himself withdrew to the cabin and lay on a sofa, telling
the second mate to call him in an hour. The next minute he was
asleep with the stapled ruffians all around him."

As the ocean routes became more clearly defined, and the limitations and character of international trade more systematized, there sprung up a new type of American ship-master. The older type--and the more romantic--was the man who took his ship from Boston or New York, not knowing how many ports he might enter nor in how many markets he might have to chaffer before his return. But in time there came to be regular trade routes, over which ships went and came with almost the regularity of the great steamships on the Atlantic ferry to-day. Early in the nineteenth century the movement of both freight and passengers between New York or Boston on this side and London and Liverpool on the other began to demand regular sailings on announced days, and so the era of the American packet-ship began. Then, too, the trade with China grew to such great proportions that some of the finest fortunes America knew in the days before the "trust magnate" and the "multimillionaire"--were founded upon it. The clipper-built ship, designed to bring home the cargoes of tea in season to catch the early market, was the outcome of this trade. Adventures were still for the old-time trading captain who wandered about from port to port with miscellaneous cargoes; but the new aristocracy of the sea trod the deck of the packets and the clippers. Their ships were built all along the New England coast; but builders on the shores of Chesapeake Bay soon began to struggle for preëminence in this style of naval architecture. Thus, even in the days of wooden ships, the center of the ship-building industry began to move toward that point where it now seems definitely located. By 1815 the name "Baltimore clipper" was taken all over the world to signify the highest type of merchant vessel that man's skill could design. It was a Baltimore ship which first, in 1785, displayed the American flag in the Canton River and brought thence the first cargo of silks and teas. Thereafter, until the decline of American shipping, the Baltimore clippers led in the Chinese trade. These clippers in model were the outcome of forty years of effort to evade hostile cruisers, privateers, and pirates on the lawless seas. To be swift, inconspicuous, quick in maneuvering, and to offer a small target to the guns of the enemy, were the fundamental considerations involved in their design. Mr. Henry Hall, who, as special agent for the United States census, made in 1880 an inquiry into the history of ship-building in the United States, says in his report:

"A permanent impression has been made upon the form and rig of
American vessels by forty years of war and interference. It was
during that period that the shapes and fashions that prevail
to-day were substantially attained. The old high poop-decks and
quarter galleries disappeared with the lateen and the lug-sails
on brigs, barks, and ships; the sharp stem was permanently
abandoned; the curving home of the stem above the house poles
went out of vogue, and vessels became longer in proportion to
beam. The round bottoms were much in use, but the tendency
toward a straight rise of the floor from the keel to a point
half-way to the outer width of the ship became marked and
popular. Hollow water-lines fore and aft were introduced; the
forefoot of the hull ceased to be cut away so much, and the
swell of the sides became less marked; the bows became somewhat
sharper and were often made flaring above the water, and the
square sprit-sail below the bowsprit was given up. American
ship-builders had not yet learned to give their vessels much
sheer, however, and in a majority of them the sheer line was
almost straight from stem to stern; nor had they learned to
divide the topsail into an upper and lower sail, and American
vessels were distinguished by their short lower mast and the
immense hoist of the topsail. The broadest beam was still at
two-fifths the length of the hull. Hemp rigging, with broad
channels and immense tops to the masts, was still retained; but
the general arrangement and cut of the head, stay, square, and
spanker sails at present in fashion were reached. The schooner
rig had also become thoroughly popularized, especially for small
vessels requiring speed; and the fast vessels of the day were
the brigs and schooners, which were made long and sharp on the
floor and low in the water, with considerable rake to the
masts."

Such is the technical description of the changes which years of peril and of war wrought in the model of the American sailing ship. How the vessel herself, under full sail, looked when seen through the eyes of one who was a sailor, with the education of a writer and the temperament of a poet, is well told in these lines from "Two Years Before the Mast":

"Notwithstanding all that has been said about the beauty of a
ship under full sail, there are very few who have ever seen a
ship literally under all her sail. A ship never has all her sail
upon her except when she has a light, steady breeze very nearly,
but not quite, dead aft, and so regular that it can be trusted
and is likely to last for some time. Then, with all her sails,
light and heavy, and studding-sails on each side alow and aloft,
she is the most glorious moving object in the world. Such a
sight very few, even some who have been at sea a good deal, have
ever beheld; for from the deck of your own vessel you can not
see her as you would a separate object.

"One night, while we were in the tropics, I went out to the end
of the flying jib-boom upon some duty; and, having finished it,
turned around and lay over the boom for a long time, admiring
the beauty of the sight before me. Being so far out from the
deck, I could look at the ship as at a separate vessel; and
there rose up from the water, supported only by the small black
hull, a pyramid of canvas spreading far out beyond the hull and
towering up almost, as it seemed in the indistinct night, into
the clouds. The sea was as still as an inland lake; the light
trade-wind was gently and steadily breathing from astern; the
dark-blue sky was studded with the tropical stars; there was no
sound but the rippling of the water under the stem; and the
sails were spread out wide and high--the two lower
studding-sails stretching on either side far beyond the deck;
the topmost studding-sails like wings to the topsails; the
topgallant studding-sails spreading fearlessly out above them;
still higher the two royal studding-sails, looking like two
kites flying from the same string; and highest of all the little
sky-sail, the apex of the pyramid, seeming actually to touch the
stars and to be out of reach of human hand. So quiet, too, was
the sea, and so steady the breeze, that if these sails had been
sculptured marble they could not have been more motionless--not
a ripple on the surface of the canvas; not even a quivering of
the extreme edges of the sail, so perfectly were they distended
by the breeze. I was so lost in the sight that I forgot the
presence of the man who came out with me, until he said (for he,
too, rough old man-of-war's man that he was, had been gazing at
the show), half to himself, still looking at the marble sails:
'How quietly they do their work!'"

The building of packet ships began in 1814, when some semblance of peace and order appeared upon the ocean, and continued until almost the time of the Civil War, when steamships had already begun to cut away the business of the old packets, and the Confederate cruisers were not needed to complete the work. But in their day these were grand examples of marine architecture. The first of the American transatlantic lines was the Black Ball line, so called from the black sphere on the white pennant which its ships displayed. This line was founded in 1815, by Isaac Wright & Company, with four ships sailing the first of every month, and making the outward run in about twenty-three days, the homeward voyage in about forty. These records were often beaten by ships of this and other lines. From thirteen to fifteen days to Liverpool was not an unknown record, but was rare enough to cause comment.

It was in this era that the increase in the size of ships began--an increase which is still going on without any sign of check. Before the War of 1812 men circumnavigated the world in vessels that would look small now carrying brick on the Tappan Zee. The performances of our frigates in 1812 first called the attention of builders to the possibilities of the bigger ship. The early packets were ships of from 400 to 500 tons each. As business grew larger ones were built--stout ships of 900 to 1100 tons, double-decked, with a poop-deck aft and a top-gallant forecastle forward. The first three-decker was the "Guy Mannering," 1419 tons, built in 1849 by William H. Webb, of New York, who later founded the college and home for ship-builders that stands on the wooded hills north of the Harlem River. In 1841, Clark & Sewall, of Bath, Me.--an historic house--built the "Rappahannock," 179.6 feet long, with a tonnage of 1133 tons. For a time she was thought to be as much of a "white elephant" as the "Great Eastern" afterwards proved to be. People flocked to study her lines on the ways and see her launched. They said only a Rothschild could afford to own her, and indeed when she appeared in the Mississippi--being built for the cotton trade--freights to Liverpool instantly fell off. But thereafter the size of ships--both packet and clippers--steadily and rapidly increased. Glancing down the long table of ships and their records prepared for the United States census, we find such notations as these.

Ship "Flying Cloud," built 1851; tonnage 1782; 374 miles in one day; from New York to San Francisco in 89 days 18 hours; in one day she made 433-1/2 miles, but reducing this to exactly 24 hours, she made 427-1/2 miles.

Ship "Comet," built 1851; tonnage 1836; beautiful model and good ship; made 332 knots in 24 hours, and 1512 knots in 120 consecutive hours.

"Sovereign of the Seas," built 1852; tonnage 2421; ran 6,245 miles in 22 days; 436 miles in one day; for four days her average was 398 miles.

"Lightning," built 1854; tonnage 2084; ran 436 miles in 24 hours, drawing 22 feet; from England to Calcutta with troops, in 87 days, beating other sailing vessels by from 16 to 40 days; from Boston to Liverpool in 13 days 20 hours.

"James Baines," built 1854, tonnage 2515; from Boston to Liverpool in 12 days 6 hours.

Three of these ships came from the historic yards of Donald McKay, at New York, one of the most famous of American ship-builders. The figures show the steady gain in size and speed that characterized the work of American ship-builders in those days. Then the United States was in truth a maritime nation. Every boy knew the sizes and records of the great ships, and each magnificent clipper had its eager partisans. Foreign trade was active. Merchants made great profit on cargoes from China, and speed was a prime element in the value of a ship. In 1840 the discovery of gold in California added a new demand for ocean shipping; the voyage around the Horn, already common enough for whalemen and men engaged in Asiatic trade, was taken by tens of thousands of adventurers. Then came the news of gold in Australia, and again demands were clamorous for more swift American ships. All nations of Europe were buyers at our shipyards, and our builders began seriously to consider whether the supply of timber would hold out. The yards of Maine and Massachusetts sent far afield for white oak knees and pine planking. Southern forests were drawn upon, and even the stately pines of Puget Sound were felled to make masts for a Yankee ship.

**Transcriber's notes: Page 4: Removed extraneous ' after "Corsairs" Page 41: changed atempt to attempt