CHAPTER I

AMERICAN SHIPPING TO THE CLOSE OF THE WAR OF 1812

THE DEEDS THAT HAVE MADE the Clipper Ship Era a glorious memory were wrought by the shipbuilders and master mariners of the United States and Great Britain, for the flag of no other nation was represented in this spirited contest upon the sea. In order, therefore, to form an intelligent idea of this era, it is necessary to review the condition of the merchant marine of the two countries for a considerable period preceding it, as well as the events that led directly to its development.

From the earliest colonial days, ship-building has been a favorite industry in America. The first vessel built within the present limits of the United States was the Virginia, a pinnace of thirty tons, constructed in 1607 by the Popham colonists who had arrived during the summer at Stage Island, near the mouth of the Kennebec River, on board the ships Gift of God and Mary and John. When these vessels returned to England, leaving forty-five persons to establish a fishing station, and a severe winter followed, the colonists became disheartened and built the Virginia which carried them home in safety and which subsequently made several voyages across the Atlantic.

The Onrust, of sixteen tons, was built at Manhattan in 1613–14, by Adrian Block and his companions, to replace the Tiger, which had been damaged by are beyond repair. After exploring the coasts of New England and Delaware Bay, she sailed for Holland with a cargo of furs. The Blessing of the Bay, a barque of thirty tons, was built by order of Governor John Winthrop at Medford, near Boston, and was launched amid solemn rejoicings by the Puritans on July 4, 1631. This little vessel was intended to give the New England colonists a means of communication with their neighbors at New Amsterdam less difficult than that through the wilderness. So we see that shipbuilding was begun in America under the pressure of necessity, and it was fostered by the conditions of life in the new country.

In the year 1668, the ship-building in New England, small as it may now seem, had become sufficiently important to attract the attention of Sir Josiah Child, sometime Chairman of the Court of Directors of the East India Company, who in his Discourse on Trade protests with patriotic alarm: “Of all the American plantations, His Majesty has none so apt for building of shipping as New England, nor any comparably so qualified for the breeding of seamen, not only by reason of the natural industry of that people, but principally by reason of their cod and mackerel fisheries, and, in my poor opinion, there is nothing more prejudicial, and in prospect more dangerous, to any mother kingdom, than the increase in shipping in her colonies, plantations, and provinces.”

The apprehension of the worthy Sir Josiah was well founded, for at that period most of the spars and much of the timber which went into the construction of the East Indiamen and the fighting ships of his royal master, King Charles II., had grown in American soil, and of 1332 vessels registered as built in New England between 1674 and 1714, no less than 289 were built for or sold to merchants abroad. Not that they were better than foreign built vessels, but on account of the plentiful supply of timber they could be built more cheaply in America than in Great Britain and on the Continent.

The industry was in a promising and healthy condition, and so continued, until in 1720 the London shipwrights informed the Lords of Trade that the New England shipyards had drawn away so many men “that there were not enough left to carry on the work.” They therefore prayed that colonial built ships be excluded from all trade except with Great Britain and her colonies, and that the colonists be forbidden to build ships above a certain size. The Lords of Trade, though fine crusty old protectionists, were unable to see their way to granting any such prayer as this, and so ship-building continued to flourish in America. In the year 1769, the colonists along the whole Atlantic coast launched 389 vessels, of which 113 were square-riggers. It should not, however, be imagined that these vessels were formidable in size. The whole 389 had an aggregate register of 20,001 tons, an average of slightly over 50 tons each. Of these vessels 137, of 8013 tons, were built in Massachusetts; 45, of 2452 tons in New Hampshire; 50, of 1542 tons, in Connecticut; 19, of 955 tons, in New York; 22, of 1469 tons, in Pennsylvania. It is probable that few of them exceeded 100 tons register, and that none was over 200 tons register.

With the advent of the Revolutionary War, the rivalry on the sea between the older and the younger country took a more serious turn. Centuries before clipper ships were ever thought of, England had claimed, through her repeated and victorious naval wars against Spain, Holland, France, and lesser nations, the proud title of Mistress of the Seas, but in the Revolutionary War with her American colonies and the War of 1812 with the United States, her battleships and fleets of merchantmen were sorely harassed by the swift, light-built, and heavily-armed American frigates and privateers. While it cannot be said that the naval power of England upon the ocean was seriously impaired, yet the speed of the American vessels and the skill and gallantry with which they were fought and handled, made it apparent that the young giant of the West might some day claim the sceptre of the sea as his own.

During the latter half of the eighteenth century, however, the leading nation in the modelling and construction of ships was France, and during this period the finest frigates owned in the British Navy were those captured from the French. The frigate was indeed invented in England, the first being the Constant Warwick, launched in 1647, by Peter Pett, who caused the fact of his being the inventor of the frigate to be engraved upon his tomb; but in the improvement of the type, England had long been outstripped by her neighbor across the channel. William James,[1] the well known historian of the British Navy, makes mention of the French forty-gun frigate Hebe which was captured by the British frigate Rainbow in 1782, and records that “this prize did prove a most valuable acquisition to the service, there being few British frigates even of the present day (1847) which, in size and exterior form, are not copied from the Hebe.” As late as 1821 the Arrow, for many years the fastest yacht owned in England, was modelled from the lines of a French lugger, recently wrecked upon the Dorset coast, which proved to be a well known smuggler that had for years eluded the vigilance of H. M. excise cutters, always escaping capture, although often sighted, through her superior speed.

The United States no less than Great Britain was indebted to France for improvements in the models of her ships at this period. During the Revolutionary War, when a treaty was entered into between France and the United States in 1778, a number of French frigates and luggers appeared in American waters. The luggers, rating from one hundred and fifty to two hundred tons and some even higher, belonged to the type used by the privateersmen of Brittany, a scourge upon every sea where the merchant flag of an enemy was to be found. They were the fastest craft afloat in their day. When the French frigates and luggers were dry docked in American ports for cleaning or repairs, their lines were carefully taken off by enterprising young shipwrights and were diligently studied. It was from these vessels that the first American frigates and privateers originated, and among the latter were the famous Baltimore vessels which probably during the War of 1812 first became known as “Baltimore clippers.”

Congress ordered four frigates and three sloops of war to be built in 1778, and almost countless privateers suddenly sprang into existence at ports along the Atlantic seaboard, most of them copied from models of the French vessels. One of the frigates, the Alliance, named to commemorate the alliance between France and the United States, was built at Salisbury, Massachusetts, by William and John Hatkett. Her length was 151 feet, breadth 36 feet, and depth of hold 12 feet 6 inches, and she drew when ready for sea 14 feet 8 inches aft and 9 feet forward. She was a favorite with the whole navy by reason of her speed and beauty, and on her first voyage she had the honor of conveying Lafayette to France, At the close of the war she was sold by the Government and became a merchantman famous in the China and India trade. Several of the privateers were built and fitted out at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and Newburyport, Massachusetts. Those in which Nathaniel Tracy was interested captured no less than 120 vessels, amounting to 23,360 tons, which with their cargoes were condemned and sold for 3,950,000 specie dollars; and with these prizes were taken 2220 prisoners of war. Many other instances of this nature might, of course, be mentioned, but the important point is the fact that in the latter part of the eighteenth century and the early part of the nineteenth, as well, the fastest vessels owned or built in the United States and Great Britain were from French models.[2]

The characteristics of the French model were a beautifully rounded bow, by no means sharp along the water-line, easy sectional lines developing into a full, powerful forebody and midship section, and great dead rise at half floor. The greatest breadth was well forward of amidships and at the waterline, with a slight,...