There is, however, no doubt that at this period there were few ships afloat which could rival in speed the Oriental, Challenge, Sea Witch, Flying Cloud, and various similar vessels the Americans had sent forth to compete with us in the trade from China, for, at that time, iron ships propelled by steam could
- [Footnote: the period to which I now refer, and to whom I am indebted for much
of the information connected with our struggles to maintain our position in that trade, gives the following graphic description of his voyage home in the Ganges, Captain Deas, belonging to Leith, one of the vessels we had sent forth soon after the repeal of our Navigation Laws, to compete with the Americans in that trade. "We landed," he says, "new teas at Wampoa, and sailed on the 1st September, 1851. Two of the fastest American clippers, the Flying Cloud and Bald Eagle, sailed two or three days after us. A great deal of excitement existed in China about the race, the American ships being the favourites. The South-west monsoon being strong, the Ganges made a rather long passage to Anger, but when we arrived there we found that neither of our rivals had been reported as having passed. We arrived in the English Channel on the evening of the 16th of December. On the following morning at daylight we were off Portland, well in shore and under short sail, light winds from north-east, and weather rather thick. About 8 A.M. the wind freshened and the haze cleared away, which showed two large and lofty ships two or three miles to windward of us. They proved to be our American friends, having their stripes and stars flying for a pilot. Captain Deas at once gave orders to hoist his signals for a pilot also, and as, by this time, several cutters were standing out from Weymouth, the Ganges being farthest in shore got her pilot first on board. I said that I would land in the pilot boat and go to London by rail, and would report the ship that night or next morning at Austin Friars." (She was consigned to my firm.) "The breeze had considerably freshened before I got on board the pilot cutter, when the Ganges filled away on the port tack, and, contrary to his wont, for he was a very cautious man, crowded on all small sails. The Americans lost no time and were after him, and I had three hours' view of as fine an ocean race as I can wish to see; the wind being dead ahead, the ships were making short tacks. The Ganges showed herself to be the most weatherly of the three; and the gain on every tack in shore was obvious, neither did she seem to carry way behind in fore reaching. She arrived off Dungeness six hours before the other two, and was in the London Docks twenty-four hours before the first, and thirty-six hours before the last, of her opponents."]
