Page:The Clipper Ship Era.djvu/429

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Fate of the Clipper Ships
345

Honolulu for New Bedford under command of Captain John F. Ropes, all hands, including fifteen passengers, being saved by the British ship Herefordshire.

The Phantom was lost on Prates Shoal, about two hundred miles east-southeast of Hong-kong, in 1862, while under command of Captain Henry Sargent. All hands were saved in the boats, which reached Hong-kong safely, and a large amount of treasure that she had on board was also saved. Captain Sargent received great credit for his brave and judicious action at the time of the wreck; for in those days the China Sea was filled with junks whose crews required only the sight of a vessel in distress to turn them into most barbarous pirates. Captain Sargent soon after took command of the clipper barque Emily C. Starr and sailed from Shanghai for Yokohama. She was never heard from, and it was supposed that she foundered in a typhoon. Captain Sargent belonged to an old Boston family whose home was on Beacon Street. He had sailed with Captain Nickels in the Flying Fish and had also commanded the ship Rockland. He was one of the youngest and most accomplished of all the American clipper ship captains.

The Bald Eagle and Romance of the Seas both sailed from Hong-kong in 1860 and were never heard from. The Reporter foundered off Cape Horn in, and in the same year the Undaunted was condemned at Rio Janeiro.

The Sweepstakes was condemned in Batavia in 1864. The Great Republic was sold to the Merchants' Trading Company, of Liverpool, in 1869 and