File:The clipper ship era - an epitome of famous American and British clipper ships, their owners, builders, commanders, and crews 1843-1869 (1910) (14782524355).jpg

Identifier: clippershiperaep00clar (find matches)
Title: The clipper ship era : an epitome of famous American and British clipper ships, their owners, builders, commanders, and crews 1843-1869
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: Clark, Arthur Hamilton, 1841-1922
Subjects: Clipper ships
Publisher: New York : G.P. Putnam's Sons
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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per-fastened through-out, their cost being £40 per ton ready for sea; butthey were very slow, and their passages were reck-oned not by days but by months. Every evening,no matter how fine the weather, royals and alllight sails were taken in and stowed, and the royalyards sent on deck. If the weather looked at allas if it might become threatening during the night,the topgallantsails and mainsail were stowed anda single reef put in the topsails. Safety and com-fort were the watchwords, with no desire or effortfor speed. No one ever knew how fast these vesselsreally could sail, as they never had any one onboard who tried to get the best speed out of them,but without doubt their passages might have beenconsiderably shortened with even a moderateamount of vigilance and energy. All we know is,how slow they were. Yet these ships were foughtthrough many a desperate battle upon the sea, withforeign men of war, privateers, and other foes, andthe skill and valor of their captains, officers, and
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Image: East Indiamen 1788. The East India Company page 31 crews shed a new lustre upon the ensign underwhich they sailed. Indeed, the maritime records ofthe East India Company read more like a navalhistory than the annals of ships engaged in commercial pursuits. In some respects these Indiamen were remarkableships, and they should, like men, be judged by thestandards of the times in which they existed. Theywere owned by a company which for more thantwo centuries held a monopoly of the British China and East India trade without the spur of competi-tion urging them to perfect their vessels and toexact vigorous service from the officers and crewswho sailed them. Under such a system there couldbe no marked progress in naval science. It would,of course, be an exaggeration to say that there hadbeen no improvement in British shipping from thereign of Queen Elizabeth to the Victorian era, butit was so gradual as to be perceptible only w^henmeasured by centuries. Thus we speak of the shipsof the sixteenth, seventeenth, and e

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