Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/216

 live oak entirely from Florida; and the sheathing-copper and iron are those supplied from England, iron from other countries then paid a duty of 30 per cent.: sheathing-copper was free of duty, but cake or pig-copper, from which bolts are manufactured in America, paid 5 per cent. Sails were, till recently, brought from England, Holland, and Russia; but hemp-canvas was then being made in America. Cotton sail-cloth had for a long time been used to a considerable extent.

Shipwrights' wages in the United States were then $2-1/2 a day, about 10s. 6d. sterling. In New York, these artificers work only ten hours per day on new work, and nine hours on old work; but repairs of ships were more expensive in England than in the United States. In the equipment, as we have seen, of American ships, great attention was paid to lessening manual labour by capstans, winches, and other contrivances; and as they were much more lightly rigged in proportion to their tonnage, they were sailed with fewer men; the average number being about two and a half sailors to every 100 tons in a packet ship ranging from 900 to 1200 tons; but in a common American freighting ship, where despatch was of less importance, the proportion is even smaller. For instance, the Henry Clay, already mentioned, 1207 tons, American, and 1467 tons, English, had thirty seamen, two boys, and a carpenter, besides the captain, four mates, cook, and steward: 40 all told.

With regard to the payment of the American captains, it is not the practice to pay them by time, but by some advantage in the voyage. In foreign freighting voyages the captains depend chiefly on the