Ipswich High School - Tiger Yearbook (Ipswich, MA)

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Spirit was so aroused against the English, however, for their impres- sing of American seamen that we went to war with them in 1812, and during the war shipping here was at a standstill. At the close of the struggle, however, the Yankee again sprang to the fore in ship- ping circles and shortly after gained the advantage over Great Britain which gave America the rule of the seas. r: Britian ' s commerce became so great that the mercantile houses and the shipping companies, which had been one and the same up to this time, were forced to separate. The merchant was no longer able to keep up with the ever changing routes, the tremendous importa- tions, reladings, and re-exporta- tions. New ship owning companies were formed to relieve the conges- tion. These companies carried the goods of several merchants over a fixed route at fixed rates. This new arrangement had a baneful effect upon European commerce primari- ly because the new ship-owner had no interest in the trade he was counted on to serve. Merchants could not come to rely on the new companies as they had on their own ships. The new companies had not the resources of the mercantile houses and if they suffered a loss they would not return to their orig- inal port. They invoked insurance protection to an extent unknown before, and they compelled the mer- chant to carry costly protection on his goods. The rates increased rapidly and mercantile initiative failed. The Americans, with their shipping a part of the commerce it served, stepped in and seized the markets Europe could no longer handle. Their shipbuilders answered the call for more vessels by producing the packet ship. They placed these ships in the trans-Atlantic service and no other nation sought to rival them. The packet was built with the necessary bluffness and free- board for the rough Atlantic cross- ing, but below decks they had the fineness of yachts. They were used mostly for passenger service, mail, and package freight. At this time, steam was first used as a means of propulsion on ships. The ‘ ' Savannah ' an American ves- sel, made a trial passage from New York to Havre and although it was successful, the steamship met with little favor in America. Britain, eager to obtain a means by which to regain her power on the sea and despairing of ever equaling the American skill in building sailing ships, began to investigate and im- prove the new steam vessel. In 1840, the Cunard line, under special government subsidy, placed the four steamers “Arcadia, “Britan- nia. “Columbia, and “Caledonia in the trans-Atlantic trade. These steamers did not rival in the least the packet ship in speed or luxuri- ousness of appointment, but to the attentive American shipper they represented the nucleus of a great change in shipping. In answer to the challenge of the steamship the Americans built the famous clippers. They had their packet ships to make the New York Liverpool trip in nine days; so they 31

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Japan through the Dutch in the East Indies. They were among the first to trade along the east coast of South America, and for a long time they had a monopoly of the West African trade. In all their commerce they followed the same plan, that of exchanging what they had that somebody else needed for what somebody else had that they needed. As the traders ventured out into the ocean, the builders ventured in- to new fields of construction and built more and better ships. In 1769 the colonies were launching approximately 389 vessels a year. One out of every six vessels built was sold to foreign concerns, and this led to disputes with English shipbuilders. A vessel could be built for twenty dollars less a ton in the colonies than it could be built in England and built better in the bar- gain. Business dropped off sharply for the English shipbuilding firms, and many of the workers left Eng- land to come to work in the Ameri- can shipping industry. The ship- builders demanded legislation to protect them from the rising Amer- ican building, and their demand was answered by the Government in the law forbidding British sub- jects to buy ships built in the colo- nies. Then the ambitious Yankee mer- chant-ship owners began to tread on the toes of the British merchants, and the Americans began to look towards liberty. To crush the free- dom movement and to aid the bleat- ing British merchants, Parliament passed laws limiting and hampering American commerce. By this legis- lation they aimed to destroy the direct trade of the colonists with Europe and their trade with the West Indies. However, the colonists entirely disregarded these laws, sometimes successfully, and some- times at the loss of a beautiful ship and her cargo. American shipping slumped de- cidedly during the Revolution, but maritime initiative was kept alive by privateering. These privateers took more prizes than the United States Navy did, and they made great sums of money from these ventures. The Revolution ended, our mariners, feeling secure in their newly won independence, planned more adventurous voyages than they had ever dreamed of be- fore. They fared forth and found that the sea was not the freeman’s paradise of which they had dreamed. Preying on American commerce became an international maritime sport. England stopped American ships on the high seas and impressed American seamen into her navy and passed legisla- tion at home which allowed her subjects to buy only the crudest of American products. During the Napoleonic wars our shipping was ravaged severely, many ships and their crews being captured by the opposing factions. Each side for- bade neutrals to trade with the other, and each side seized vessels caught doing so. Yet under these conditions our shipping attained its most rapid growth. The Yankee shipowner with his fast, fleet ves- sels was able to carry cargoes to the waring nations at high profits to himself, even if he did lose a vessel now and then by confiscation. 30

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built the clipper fast and deep for the deep water trades. They came nearer to the perfect in hull des- ign than any mode of hull until the semi-bulbous prow of ships of to- day. The clippers, with their wet free board, battened hatches, and great expanses of billowing sail, made passages through the Pacific to China never equalled by sail again. They were the last word in sailing ships and a pure American invention. No other maritime na- tion could ever hope to create their equal in sail. America with her clipper could have ruled the wave a century longer had it not been for the Civil War. In steam, too, we outclassed the British. Under government subsidy the Collins line placed the steam- ships “Arctic,” “Baltic,” “Pacific,” and “Atlantic” in the trans-Atlantic trade in 1850, and we already had a steam fleet of coastal vessels. Then came the Civil War, when our Merchant Marine was at the height of its glory. Our flag was on every highway of commerce. Our total ocean going tonnage had reached 2,496,894 dead weight tons. We were the king of the seas, and our builders were ready to meet every advance in the shipping of the world with a greater ad- vance. Just at the time when our supremacy on the sea seemed se- cure, the hand of fate moved back the clock, and we found ourselves at the bottom of the maritime lad- der. By the ravages of Confederate cruisers, the demoralization of our industries and commerce, the sale of our vessels into foreign registry, and the bankruptcy of many of our shipowners, half our merchant marine was wiped out. We were left with 1,486,749 tons of practi- cally obsolete ships. The world had swung from sail and wooden ships to steam and steel ships, and Amer- ica was not equipped with yards to build the new steel vessels. Our people had to turn from a broken Merchant Marine to internal re- sources to recoup their lost capital and to establish themselves once more on a firm financial footing. From the close of the war be- tween the states until the World War, our Merchant Marine hardly equaled that of a third or fourth rate power. The capital in the United States was occupied in cul- tivating the hordes of immigrants brought into this country in foreign bottoms. Our flag was seen in few- er and fewer harbors by American tourists. Every fifty years that sep- arated us from the days of our mar- itime glory saw the enthusiasm for an American Merchant Marine go down a notch. American mercan- tile initiative became almost nil. We began to take a false pride in what we called trade seclusion and the sea, our natural heritage, was for- gotten. The World War jarred us out of our rut and, because of our lack of ocean transportation facilities, cost us millions of dollars in fees to other nations for transporting our troops and in foolish building ac- tivities. We built ships that sank when launched. We raised ship vards like Hog Island that cost us $66,000,000 and is a white elephant on the government’s hands today. All that waste of time and money 32