The great days of sail : some reminiscences of a tea-clipper captain

Front matter

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Foreword

THE ocean-going sailing-ship has almost disappeared, and it serves to remind us how brief was the culminating era of the clippers that the following reminiscences are those of a man yet alive who shared in their heyday, and whose early recollections are of the first Aberdeenbuilt vessels which, in the fifties, wrested the blue ribbon of the world’s carrying trade from the famous American flyers of Boston and New York. Within the span of a single human life the clipper-ship era is almost wholly contained.

In his own person Captain Shewan sums up that era. Coming of an old seafaring family of Peterhead, he speaks with understanding and authority. His grandfather was a whaling captain who died as far back as 1830, through exposure on an ice-floe, his ship being nipped in the Greenland ice. His father, becoming master of a schooner in the St. John’s fish trade at the age of twenty-one, rose to the command of that early ‘‘ crack,” the Lammermuir, and afterwards of the Norman Court.

Captain Shewan himself made his first voyage to sea in the Chaa-sze in 1860, and followed his father in command of the Norman Court. He is to-day probably the last survivor of the tea-clipper captains who, in the sixties and seventies of last century, added one of the most striking and picturesque chapters to British maritime history.

10 FOREWORD

His memories have an interest and his opinions a weight to which few seaman-authors can lay claim. What those of us whose seafaring began with the century know about the tea-clippers of the halcyon age of sail, we know almost entirely from the written or the printed word. At best our information is from the yarns of old shipmates who loved to remember the feats of their youth.

But Captain Shewan knew the ships whose names are now almost household words as one can only know the intimate associates of a lifetime. Brought up in Blackwall of the old days, his knowledge of the clippers is from first-hand experience, his judgments from professional estimates formed at the time. He has been on board almost every one of the British clippers he mentions and raced with many of them on the high seas, It is Cesar who tells the story of his own wars.

There has of late been much interest displayed in sailing-ships and the vanished way of life connected with them. Now, before they pass into the limbo of forgotten things, it seems fitting that one among the best-known of those skilful and daring commanders of the great days of sail should add his share to the stock of material available for those who, in future, would learn something of a great epoch in our naval annals.

REX CLEMENTS.

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CHAP,

Contents

FOREWORD . °

EARLY DAYS

BLACKWALL PIER

Chapter I Early Days

So much has been written of late concerning life at sea when our overseas trade was carried on without the aid of steam, and merchants relied solely for transport on the wings of the wind, that I hesitate to add to the total. Yet, as a sailor’s son, myself a sailor, brought up from childhood amid sailor surroundings, with sailor relatives and friends, I must plead the love of all lore pertaining to the almost extinct ‘‘ windjammers *’ as my excuse for venturing on the well-worn theme. |

As a boy my home, in the fifties of last century, was in Stepney. Most of my schoolmates and associates were sons of seafaring men, and our outlook was to the sea.

It would nearly always happen that one or other of our fathers’ ships was on the homeward-bound list, and almost any tide we had hopes of seeing the Lammermuir, John Temperley, Pride of the Ocean, or other famous ship, looming up over the fleet of barges in Woolwich Reach, like a Triton amongst minnows.

Each of us well knew the distinctive marks of the vessel that claimed our particular interest, and excitement ran high when “ our ship ’’ was seen in the river, shortening in the rope or swinging to the flood, preparatory to dropping alongside the landing-stage in readiness to enter the East India Dock.

I5

But time and tide wait for no man, and sometimes “our ship ’’ docked at night or unexpectedly. One might have waited many days in hope deferred, and, after all, the ‘‘ long awa’’’ ship be hauled into dock ere one was aware of it.

Yet that did not often happen. In those days a maritime register was published weekly, giving a list of all ships homeward bound to the United Kingdom. As soon as the departure of a vessel from a foreign port was posted up at ‘‘ Lloyd’s,’» or in the ‘‘ Jerusalem ”’ (an old-time coffee-house used as an exchange by the shipping folk in the city of London), the fact was entered in the register. Later, should the vessel be spoken at sea or reported as having passed any particular point of land, such information was added to the record. Thus a glance at the List would inform one when and where any ship was last heard of.

My father’s ship being in the China trade, our first notification would be ‘‘ Left Whampoa ’”’ or ‘* Macao,”’ as the case might be, on a certain date. A week or two later this would be altered and the legend would read: ‘‘ Passed Anjer ’’—a Java town in the Straits of Sunda. Though the tea-clippers, homeward bound, . seldom anchored at Anjer, there were always Malay boats cruising in the Narrows, from which ships were able to obtain supplies of fowls, fruit, etc., and whose skippers were in duty bound to report each ship they boarded to the Dutch port-captain ashore. These reports were sent regularly to Lloyd’s, and it was seldom a vessel passed Anjer without notice.

Then, after a longer interval, we would look for the welcome: ‘‘ Passed St. Helena.’’ This island lay right in the track of all ships rounding the Cape of Good Hope, and those that did not call for a supply of water or vegetables would unfailingly ‘‘ make their number ”’ if they passed the island during the hours of daylight.

EARLY DAYS 17

As, however, the mail steamer only called at the island once a month and took another month to come home, it often happened that smart ships were in London before such reports of them arrived.

Our particular ship, the Lammermuir, being a *““heeler,’’ it was most unlikely that any vessel should Speak with her at sea and be in London river before | her. Yet as the time drew near when it was reasonable to expect she was nearing the Channel, Lloyd’s List was eagerly scanned for news. Every beer-shop and public-house along the river from Wapping to Blackwall took in one or more copies of the paper, which were lent out to customers, ‘‘ not to be kept more than ten minutes by any one household.”

Once indoors, the coveted List was spread out on the table and each of the signalling-points down Channel —the Lizard, Start Point and the rest—quickly scanned for the well-known name. ‘ Deal ’”’ was the last place that interested us, for, if the ship were posted at ** Gravesend,’’ father would be home before we could see it in the List. !

Keen interest, too, was taken in the direction of the wind and state of the weather. Quite contented when the reports had anything with a ‘‘ W ”’ in it, we pulled long faces when the dreaded ‘‘ east’? appeared. (This means little to maritime folk nowadays—at most a few hours’ delay—but in windjammer times a spell of easterly, winds made the import quays bare of shipping and brought hard fare to dockers, riggers and other waterside labourers. Even the comparatively aristocratic shipwrights and lightermen felt the pinch of a longcontinued ‘‘ easterly,’’ which, like the proverbial cat, was said to be gifted with nine lives. As an Irish sailor complained, ‘‘ Six weeks of aisterly winds in the month of March ’’ was no joke for ships beating up the English Channel.

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On one occasion, in February, 1866, I have vivid recollections of leaving the Downs with the first faint air of an ‘‘ easterly ’’ which carried us to Madeira in eight days, and thereafter continued almost persistently for nine or ten weeks; with such evil effects to many homeward-bounders, short of provisions after long voyages, that the Admiralty sent cruisers with stores and water to relieve those vessels which were held so far to the westward they could not fetch into an Irish port.

In October, 1871, again, in the tea-clipper Norman Court, we arrived at Blackwall—the first ship to dock there for over three weeks. The pier was crowded with ‘“ out of works,’? who gave us welcome as a harbinger of hope, for now they could look for further vessels. Even the crimps from the Highway were hard hit, and when the ship tied up in the Basin there were free fights among them for possession of the sailors’ chests. Jack was bound to follow the boarding-house runner who had his ‘‘ dunnage.’’ |

Oft times, during easterly. winds, a telegram landed by a hoveller at some port down Channel would be the first intimation of the approach of the long-awaited ship; to be followed perhaps by a note from a friendly shipbroker, telling us that the Lammermuztr in tow had passed through the Downs at such and such an hour, bound for the river.

The foreign-going shipmaster usually left his ship at Gravesend to facilitate her entry at the custom-house. Father, therefore, might be expected home any minute, and we boys hung about Stepney railway station on the look-out for a sunburnt seaman, with flowing moustaches and majestic beard, who, if not ‘full of strange oaths,’’ yet commanded a voice and bearing that made him conspicuous among the palefaced Londoners of those days.

EARLY DAYS 19

At length the happy hour arrived, and with father ensconced in the armchair, a neighbour or two in for company (haply a mariner’s wife, anxious for news of her good man), we listened open-mouthed to tales of tea-carrying rivals being ‘‘ out-manceuvred, outweathered and out-sailed,’’ of ships spoken at sea and of heavy squalls off Borneo. Or we were thrilled at hearing of narrow squeaks of collision, of making the land and picking up the pilot—all happenings trivial enough to ancient mariners, but to us boys “‘ the vision splendid.’’

We heard of the welfare of our friends in the ship’s company, and noted particulars of any monkeys, mongooses, parrots, Java sparrows or such-like, as well as Chinese toys, dragon kites and preserved ginger, brought home for our delectation. Best news of all, the Lammermuir, we would hear, was to dock at Blackwall next forenoon, and the two eldest boys were to miss school and be on the pierhead to meet her.

Instead of a subdued and somewhat anxious household, we had laughter and jollity; and Liza, our maidof-all-work, with visions of handsome apprentices adorning her back kitchen, moved round ‘as busy,” as father said, ‘‘ as the devil in a gale of wind.”

Meeting the ship next day was an event to be long remembered. As ‘‘ the captain’s children ’’ we were persons of consequence, to be hoisted aboard when the ship sheered alongside the ‘‘ dummy ”’ and to be made a fuss of by the kindly mate and steward. Even the old tyrant in uniform, in charge of the landing-stage, who at ordinary times was prompt to chase us from the pontoon, now beamed benignantly and lent a hand to get us up the ship’s side. .We were the heroes of the moment, and knew well that the dozen or so boys on the quay whose fathers were still at sea and who were curtly ordered to ‘‘ Stand back, clear of that check! ’’ were green with envy. .

On board, we were kept busy answering inquiries as to the welfare of friends and acquaintances, and had the unforgettable experience of hearing the crew singing their ‘“‘ homeward-bound ”’ shanties, as they tramped round the capstan heaving the good ship into her berth. We tramped round with them with a sense of contentment too deep for words.

Stepney, in those days, was a grand place for a boy who wanted to be a sailor.

Chapter II Blackwall Pier

BLACKWALL Pier on a fine day seventy years ago, with a fresh westerly breeze and a three-quarter flood, was an attractive place for the lover of ships. It was the centre of a scene of packed maritime activity. Woolwich Reach at such a time would be crowded with sailing barges, ketches, schooners, and Goole “ billiboys,’’ with a Dutch galliot or two, and a smart, yacht-like fish-carrier, all on the move and tacking across the reach. On the Greenwich side a few light colliers would be boring their way through the flood, swinging the main topgallant sail.

Dodging about among the shipping were sure to be one or more of the quaint ‘‘ penny steamers ”’ of the day, with high funnels and chequered sides. The progress of such craft was accomplished by means of many shouts of ‘‘ Easy ahead!’’, ‘‘ Starn eas-ee! ’’, ** Stop her! ’”’ sung out by the “ bridge telegraph *’’— a ragged urchin who stood over the engine-room skylight with his eye on the captain and interpreted each motion of the latter’s hand to the engineer below.

In the foreground a weather-beaten homewardbounder might be preparing to dock, looking very picturesque as she had come through without anchoring, her sea-going gear still aloft.

Ahead of her the tug kept a taut rope, just sufficient to make the flood leave a slight curl of water at her stem. (With yards braced sharp up, sails neatly stowed, flags streaming from the trucks, the glorious Red Ensign at her peak, and tacks and sheets still dangling from the clews of the courses, she presented a sight calculated to rouse the enthusiasm of even landlubbers, let alone romantic youth who gloried in tales of the sea.

And how inspiring was the appearance of the men— a score or so of swarthy, weather-beaten “ hairybreasters ’’ in well-worn sea rig, with red or blue shirts tucked under a belt which carried a dagger-like sheathknife, booted to the knee, heaving the best bower aboard and roaring out one of the shanties specially reserved for entering dock at the end of the voyage.

The manner in which the various craft in the river kept clear of one another was a mystery. Collisions that seemed inevitable were continually being avoided by a hair’s breadth. It was the more remarkable as large ocean-going sailing-ships were being towed both up and down river, and only the very largest, such as the Yankee packet-ships from the London docks, had the safeguard of a second tug lashed alongside to stop their way in case of emergency,

Each vessel was in charge of an expecieaben waterman or pilot (large foreign-going ships had both, one at _ each end), and a wave of the hand from one navigator to another was sufficient, such was the perfection of the unwritten river code, to indicate the course the signaller intended to take.

Of course there were slight collisions, mere playful bumps which did no more harm than a brush of paint or tar would cure, and which indeed often helped the smaller craft on its way. The ‘‘ Geordie ’’ brigs were said to be adepts in this nice point of practical seamanship. They had the art, it was believed, of bumping their larger neighbours at just the correct angle to help them round on to a new tack, when it was necessary to go about.

-BLACKWALL PIER 23

Nor must the ‘‘ dumb barges’ be omitted. (They had no propelling power save the tide, on which they lazily drifted, broadside on, in midstream. The solitary lighterman who composed the crew usually stood with arms akimbo in the head, ‘‘ monarch of all he surveyed.’’ Everything else had to give way to him, and he knew it. Nevertheless, when some exasperated waterman, having to make a tack or otherwise inconvenience himself on account of ‘‘ the lord of the river,’’ gave vent to his feelings in heated language, the grinning bargee would so far unbend as to perform a double shuffle on the scuttle hatch.

Now and again, however, it happened that some pugnacious north-countryman would decline to give way and, with a gentle tap on the quarter, would push the heavy lighter out of the orthodox ’thwart the tide position. Then indeed his wrath was aroused, and the man who tended the cork fender to ease the blow would be entertained to a flow of Billingsgate as blue as the deep sea... «

Besides the panorama on the river, there was the motley crowd on the pier—full of interest for the student of humanity. Close to the dock entrance was the famous, or infamous, ‘‘ tap-house,’’ where much liquor was consumed every flood tide, when the “craft”? and shipping were being docked and undocked. Jack, outward bound and attended with female friends, lingered here, until forced to take the ** pier-head-jump,’’ when his ship was lying “‘ on the knuckle ’’ and the tow-rope was being passed to the waiting tug-boat.

Inside the long narrow tap-room a fiddle or two scraped to keep the hilarity going to the last. The ladies here were not often parting from husbands; nevertheless, they were on the most affectionate terms with their partners. Free fights with one another alternated with hugging, kissing, blessings and cursings. Indeed for an hour or two the scene rivalled anything to.be seen at the notorious ‘‘ Paddy’s Goose ’’ in the Highway at its rowdiest.

Then the boarding-house runners, usually athletic six-footers, roughly shepherded their charges on to the pierhead, to make sure of their embarkation and see their “‘ advance notes ’’ were not invalidated. They literally threw the more refractory ones on board, and had to keep close watch to see some of them did not tumble ashore again.

Even then they were sometimes evaded or brushed aside. Venus—the Ratcliff Highway variety—flushed and boisterous on the quay, was more often than not the cause of the trouble. Her cheery endearments, intended to speed the parting guest, acted contrariwise : though the interested spectator might observe she was casting anxious glances toward the homeward-bound ship, sheering alongside at the upper end of the pier. ‘* Off with the old love and on with the new ”’ was the Highway philosophy; simply expressed in the ancient formula: ‘‘ Get up, Jack, and let John sit down.”’

Ships undocking on the flood were taken into the river stern foremost. As the tide caught a vessel’s quarter she was allowed to drift upstream and was checked on the knuckle of the landing-stage. She was followed all the way by a confused crowd of friends giving and receiving hasty farewells. Messages loving and reproachful, prayers for good luck and defiant wishes for the reverse, were mixed with facetious requests to ‘‘ Bring me home a monkey, Bill,’’ or ‘* Ware those Melbourne wenches, Jack ’’; all to be cut short by a stentorian shout : ‘* Stand clear the checks there! ’’ Then a general scamper was made for safety and the rest of the ‘‘ send off ’’ was a medley of waving hats and yells.

BLACKWALL PIER 25

As the vessel was dragged stern first from the lock there was a moment of anxiety for pilot and dockmaster. She had to be kept well to ‘‘ windward ”’ to clear the pier, yet checked before running too far into the tideway, to enable the tug to pick up the tow-rope. The forecastle head was a scene of excitement and bustle; the pilot alternating orders to ‘‘ Slack away!’’ and ‘“ Hold on! ”’ while the men stood ready to pay out the great hempen hawser when the waterman in his boat had passed the heaving line to the tug.

A breathless minute, and the ship straightened up, head down river. The pilot blew his whistle, the rope settled on the bitts and the check-ropes were cast off. As the tug took the strain and the vessel sheered away from the quay, the boatswain looked round and gave the word: *‘ Now, lads, give them ‘ good-bye’! ”

The men sprang to the call. Some on the forecastle head, others half-way up the forerigging, made ready to wake the echoes with the time-honoured ritual of ‘‘ the ringing cheers.’ With eyes on the leader and caps in hand, to be swung vigorously round the head in unison, they broke out into a thunderous ‘‘ Hip, hip, hurrah! ”’ thrice repeated.

To the salute the crowd ashore replied, with equal heartiness, if with a little less force and unanimity. Those on board responded with yet another, and dispersed to their duties. The ceremony was finished.

How it affected others I cannot say, but for myself the cheers thrilled me through and through. Nowhere else have I heard such a full-throated burst of sound (unless it were when the Greenland fleet left Peterhead for the fishery) as when one of the regular Blackwall Indiamen was outward bound for the East. Those same *‘ ringing cheers,’’ I dare assert, have helped to win many a battle for the British.

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The ship dwindled away down stream, and the folk slowly cleared off the pier. The blue flag, flown from the pier masthead during the period of flood, was hauled down. The lockgates were hove to, and “‘ tide was over.’’ Venus and the crimps departed to await Jack, homeward bound, at the dock entrance; those who had said ‘* good-bye ’’ in real earnest to make their way slowly homewards.

For the next ten or twelve hours Blackwall Pier would wear a deserted and forlorn appearance, and the broad river be left to coasters and barges sailing down on the ebb.

Does a flowing tide, I wonder, tend to raise one’s spirits, and the ebb to depress them? I have often thought so. One suggests gaiety, the other gloom: is it not said of those about to die that their souls “* go out with the ebb ’’?

Chapter III Blackwall Memories

Most seamen have a favourite port, and Blackwall was my first and last love. Associations of half a lifetime are bound up with it.

There was a memorable Sunday afternoon in October, 1863, when I first saw that bonnie and once famous Glasgow clipper, the Falcon. She arrived in company with the Flying Spur and other crack clippers, British and American, and the neighbourhood turned out in force to welcome them. The ladies vied with each other in the elaborateness of their toilettes and the circumference of their crinolines, the enormous hoops of which it was an endless source of amusement to male juveniles to ‘* squeeze up.”’

No less gay were the scenes when one of the famous Blackwallers, the old Monarch or ‘The Earl of Balcarres—the last of the two-decker Indiamen—was leaving. Such ships carried fifty or sixty of a crew, without counting midshipmen and cuddy servants, and were manned chiefly by local mariners. Half the parish would be on the pier to see them off. The Highway element was not much in evidence on such occasions, and the wives, sisters and sweethearts of the departing made a pleasant and comely picture.

Once, when Green’s Barham was leaving, I noticed an elderly couple seeing their son off. The mother had drawn attention to herself by the unlimited and impossible advice. she was giving her son, who received it lightheartedly, with mysterious rejoinders about a “‘ cat.”

Then the ship sheered away from the quay. Springing to the rail, the boy drew a kitten from his jacket and waved it round his head hilariously, while the cat gave vent to vigorous ‘‘ meeows.’”’ The indignant old lady turned to her husband: ‘‘ The wretch has stolen the ...’’ she began. But her remarks were lost in a roar of laughter from the onlookers which lasted till the ‘‘ cheers ’’ were given, and the great ship dropped gaily down the river.

Sailors and their folk made no great fuss over | parting. It was different with emigrants. The latter were embarked in dock; and groups of men, women and children, miserably huddled together among boxes, chests and bundles, with tearful friends at their side, waited for hours on the quay when an emigrant ship for the Colonies was about to sail.

When I was very young I remember seeing two elderly women talking earnestly to a comely girl of about nineteen. ‘‘ Dinna gang, lassie, dinna gang,”’ they kept repeating. The girl never answered them, but with quivering lip and head held high, marched on board. So she sailed, leaving the two old Souls weeping on the quay.

I expect it was a case of ‘‘ following the lad.” The ship was bound to New Zealand, and perhaps the bonnie lassie of ’61 is now a grandmother herself and saw a grandchild of her own take his departure for ‘‘ Flanders’ fields.”’

Comedy sometimes turned to tragedy. When one of Wigram’s Melbourne liners (the Kent, I think) was sailing, I saw one of the boatswain’s mates spring into the forerigging to lead the cheering. He slipped and fell, striking his head against the fore

BLACKWALL MEMORIES 29 channels and falling into the river, where he sank immediately.

ihe accident turned the glee of leave-taking to gloom at once. What made it more sad was that he was a young married man and the accident was witnessed by his wife on the quay, with her baby in her arms.

Besides emigrants, troops often embarked at Blackwall; and I have watched contingents of the disbanded soldiers of the East India Company disembarking there after the Indian Mutiny. They looked as if they had seen much _ service—bronzed and bearded veterans for the most part, in uniforms that had seen better days. Parties of them came home in Dunbar’s ships, but there was mismanagement somewhere, for numbers of them landed penniless. In one case there was a general uproar and the pier tavern was wrecked. The soldiers were blamed, but local roughs were at the bottom of the mischief.

I saw one veteran, a fine-looking man, sitting on a bollard after the fray, covered with blood, his clothes torn from his back. The nature of his homecoming must have hurt him cruelly, for he was sobbing like a child. When he was spoken to he pointed to some scars on his chest, with a heart too full to reply. A thousand times, no doubt, in the heat and dust of Indian war he had looked forward to and pictured this homecoming. And this was the reality! I pitied him with all my heart.

There was an ugly side to Blackwall and the pier and it came out on occasions like this, or when a ‘‘ hell-fire ’? ship was being supplied with a crew. I have seen a free fight and weapons used by crimps and seamen when the Clymene, a Liverpool ship, was sailing for India.

Poor Jack was very much at the mercy of these land-sharks, the crimps. Occasionally, I am glad to say, the tables were turned. Some simple mariners from Aberdeen once ‘‘ did’’ the wide-awake Highway runners in a delightful manner.

"Way back in the sixties the wool-clipper Granite City arrived in London from Aberdeen, where she had undergone extensive repairs, bringing with her a freight of granite kerb-stones. With this heavy cargo she was ‘‘ well down in the pickle,’ and, as it was a dark, wintry night when she arrived, coming alongside Blackwall Pier she looked like a ship fully laden.

The crimps jumped to the conclusion she was from Sydney as usual, and the crowd of runners did not trouble to disabuse them. Arrangements were made for the men to put up at a certain boarding-house, (Paddy Finn’s in Old Gravel Lane), and, pending the ship being berthed, the customary bottles of rum were passed aboard in generous profusion, together with certain small sums in cash asked for. Not being allowed to bring their cart on to the pier, the erimps waited for the men at the main dock entrance.

‘The canny Scots, however, were ‘longshoremen, working the ship to London “‘ by the run ”’ on a lump sum basis, and their contract was finished as soon as the ship was through the locks. Being unencumbered with chests or kit, they left the dock, one at a time, by the pier entrance and made tracks for the night train for bonnie Scotland.

It meant death or disablement to mention the words Granite City for long after that in the Highway. But the incident was not allowed to be forgotten,

(There was an ancient seller of preserved candy, whose pitch was just outside the dock entrance, who went by the name of ‘‘ Blind Billy.”’ He had been a boatswain in the Blackwallers, and he possessed the gift of coining appropriate phrases for any unusual or

BLACKWALL MEMORIES 31 lubberly happening which took place in his neighbourhood, which he retailed to all and sundry in a voice like a foghorn.

“Blind Billy ’’ seized on the incident of the Gramte City, and discussed it with ‘‘ damnable iteration ’’ with the old Irish applewomen who sat near him, whenever the runners were about. And much as they disliked it they were powerless to prevent him.