THE
CLIPPER SHIPS
Tea lay behind one of the most colorful eras in U.S.
maritime history, the tea trade—the tall, beautiful
clipper ships, the intrepid, hard-driving and soon
wealthy captains (and the intrepid, hard-driven, far
less wealthy seamen), the new fortunes of shipowners
and shipbuilders, the a high, square New England mansions
with widow's walks on top, the exotic curios that
were soon displayed in even New England home.These
included silks, porcelain, silver dishes, carved ivory,
and furniture of carved wood and lacquer, and tens
of thousands of fans. Sometimes gifts from seafaring
men, and often ship's ballast, as in the case of porcelain,
these were an inseparable concomitant of the tea trade,
Whipple in The Clipper Ships makes the astonishing
statement that in 1850 a fifth of every household's
goods in Salem, Massachusetts, came from China.
What is less well known about these romantic sailing
ships on the China run is that when tea business was
slim, they carried instead to the United States and
else where thousands of Chinese laborers fleeing the
poverty of their own country by taking the hardest,
low-paying jobs abroad.
Tea also promoted a revolution in ship building. Because
tea leaves mold in damp sea air, a rapid passage meant
a better tea. The long trip from China to the east
coast of the United States took six months to a year
around Cape Horn, a powerful incentive to design faster
ships. The answer was the clipper. Developed out of
the swift, maneuverable privateers built to raid British
shipping during the War of 1812, it was lean and sleek,
with a sharp bow that cut through the waves, and much
more sail.
The first true clipper with all of its features was
the Rainbow, designed by John Willis Griffiths and
launched on February 22, 1845. Despite some damage
and unfavorable northeast winds, she made the trip
in 102 days, sixteen fewer than any vessel previously,
and so fast that she was the first to bring back to
New7 York the news other arrival in Canton. The all-time
record for the trip from Canton to Sandy Hook near
New York
City was made by the Sea Witch on March 25,1849—74
days, 14 hours. The 1843 Treaty of Nanking at the
end of the First Opium War ceded Hongkong to Britain
and permitted foreign vessels to enter four more Chinese
ports in addition to Canton. Tea shipping became a
big business. The British East India Company, though
it held on in India until 1859, could no longer claim
a monopoly on the tea trade. Many younger companies
were challenging it. In 1833 Parliament had re-pealed
the Navigation Acts. Intended to give the British
an advantage over the Dutch in shipping, these had
specified that only British ships (or Chinese, but
there were none so large) could carry Chinese tea
to Britain. The repeal provided the opportunity7 for
the faster U.S. ships to enterthe British trade. The
Oriental, the first U.S. vessel to take Chinese tea
to London, reached there in December 1850, only ninety-seven
days out of Hongkong, far faster than any British
ship had ever made the trip. Without the umbrella
of the monopoly, British shipbuilding was forced to
create vessels that could compete. Tea had been transported
to Britain in the East Indiamen, large, stately craft
that moved steadily but slowly—tea wagons they were
called. The U.S.-British rivalry in ship building
and design aroused as much excitement and apprehension
as had the Boston Tea Party, according to some commentators.
British ship building rose to the challenge and produced
some fine clippers, The rivalry climaxed in the China-to-London
clipper races over the j next two decades. The first
tea on the Eondon market brought the best j price.
It became the fashion to offer guests a cup of tea
from the newest j crop brought by the year's fastest
and most famous ship. Spectators j crowded to the
city, sleeping at the docks. Bets were placed, and
the J winning crew might divide a bonus of five hundred
pounds sterling.
The first Chinese picking w-ould reach one of the
treaty ports, usually Fuzhou in Fujian province, in
mid-June. The loads were packed with extreme care
by skilled Chinese stevedores, for even a slight shift
in weight or balance could slow up a ship. In our
age of power ships, it is not easy to visualize the
difficulties faced on the long trip, with progress
j subject to the whims of the wind and the waves,
and won by pitting the jj seamen's skill against them.
The ships left from Canton or Fuzhou, not knowing,
in those days before the telegraph, how their competitors
j were doing until they neared Eondon.
The greatest race took place in 1866 with an all-British
cast of forty vessels. (The best U.S. clippers had
either been destroyed in the Civil War or sold by
panicky owners to foreign buyers.) Its conclusion,
despite 15,000 miles and ninety-nine days, might be
described as a photo finish.
The prize was to go to the first ship to toss some
tea chests onto the dock. While the Ariel waited to
take on a pilot at the Dungeness light off the British
coast, the Taeping came up from behind and passed
it.Captain Keay of the Ariel moved ahead and cut off
the Taeping, forcing. it to slow down. At the mouth
of the Thames River he w-as leading, but unluckily
got a poor tug boat, and the Taeping passed him. Still
thought he had won the race, as the Taeping had to
go further to dock. But low tide kept him from getting
alongside his dock. the Ariel waited an hour and twenty-three
minutes, the Taeping reached.g its own dock and, able
to maneuver better in the deeper water upstream,tied
up and tossed its first tea chests over, thus becoming-winner.
The last race was in 1871, when steamships had nearly
replaced clippers, and the opening of the Suez Canal
had already cut weeks the sailing voyage from Asia.
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