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44 James A. Wooton, of the Havre; William H. Allen, of the Virginia, Waterloo, West Point, and Constellation; E. E. Morgan, of the Hudson and Victoria; John Johnston, of the Rhone and Isaac Bell; and of a later period, Robert C. Cutting, of the Adelaide; and Samuel Samuels, of the Dreadnought.

It required an unusual combination of qualities to command these Western Ocean packet ships successfully. Above all things it was necessary that the captains should be thorough seamen and navigators; also that they should be men of robust health and great physical endurance, as their duties often kept them on deck for days and nights together in storm, cold, and fog. Then there were frequently desperate characters among the crew and steerage passengers, who required to be handled with moral courage and physical force, while the cabin passengers were usually gentlemen and gentlewomen of good breeding, accustomed to courtesy and politeness, which they expected to find in the captains with whom they sailed. These requirements evolved a remarkable type of men, hearty, bluff, and jovial, without coarseness, who would never be mistaken for anything but gentlemen.

The packet mates, having no social duties on shipboard to distract their attention, were able to devote their time and energies to improving the morals and manners of the crew, and it was on board the Black Ball liners that "belaying pin soup" and "handspike hash," so stimulating to honest toil, were first introduced for the benefit of mutinous or slothful mariners.

Plenty of sail was carried by the packet ships