In 1821, Thomas Cope of Philadelphia started his line of packets between that port and Liverpool with the ships Lancaster, of 290 tons, and Tuscarora, of 379 tons, which were soon followed by larger vessels, among them some of the finest ships on the Atlantic. Rain or shine, blow high, blow low, one of the Black Ball liners sailed from New York for Liverpool on the first and sixteenth of each month, and for many years these were the European mail days throughout the United States. Their captains were the finest men whose services money could secure, and to their care were entrusted the lives of eminent men and women, government despatches, the mails and specie. They were in their day the only regular means of communication between the United States and Europe. At all events, these little ships, with their full-bodied, able hulls, and their stout spars, sails, and rigging, were driven outward and homeward across the Atlantic, through the fogs and ice of summer and the snow, sleet, and gales of winter, for all the speed that was in them. It was said that some of the early Black Ball captains had commanded privateers during the War of 1812. The hulls were painted black from the water-line up, with bright scraped bends, which were varnished, and the inner side of the bulwarks, rails, hatch-houses, and boats were painted green. The stores, spare sails, gear, etc., were kept in the lazarette abaft the cabins, with a small hatch leading to the main-deck. The steerage passengers lived in the between-decks amidships, and the crew's forecastle was in the fore-peak. The cow-house was lashed over the main hatch, and there were also other small hatch-houses and a companion aft leading to the comfortable, well-appointed cabins, which were lighted by deck skylights, candles, and whale-oil lamps. The long-boat, which was, of course, securely lashed, carried the live stock,-pens for sheep and pigs in the bottom, ducks and geese on a deck laid across the gunwales, and on top of all, hens and chickens. These ships were all flush deck, with a caboose or galley and the housed-over long-boat between the fore- and main-masts. The fastest outward passage was made by the Canada in 15 days, 18 hours, and her total averages-19 days outward and 36 days homeward-were the best of that period. For the first ten years the passages of the fleet averaged 23 days outward and 40 days to the westward. The original ships belonging to this line were the Amity, Courier, Pacific, and James Monroe, of about 400 tons they were followed by the New York, Eagle, Orbit, Nestor, James Cropper, William Thompson, Albion, Canada, Britannia, and Columbia, vessels of from 300 to 500 tons register. The pioneer, Black Ball Line, established by Isaac Wright, Francis and Jeremiah Thompson, Benjamin Marshall, and others, led the van for years. The famous New York-Liverpool packets came out in 1816. WHILE progress in ship-building in the United States had been constant up to the War of 1812, American ship-owners and builders had been much hampered by the interference of both Great Britain and France, but in 1815, when the smoke of battle had cleared away and the rights of American ships and seamen had been established upon the sea, ship-building was taken up with renewed energy. THE NORTH ATLANTIC PACKET SHIPS, 1815-1850
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