Page:The Clipper Ship Era.djvu/76

46 Yorkshire, Captain Bailey, made the passage from Liverpool to New York in sixteen days. This is believed to be the fastest passage ever made from Liverpool to the westward by a packet ship. The Montezuma, 1070 tons, and the Patrick Henry, 997 tons, the Southampton, 1273 tons, built by Westervelt & Mackay, in 1849, also the St. Andrew, Captain William C. Thompson, of Robert Kermit's Line, all made the passage from New York to Liverpool in fifteen days.

It should, however, be remembered that these packet ships, running regularly across the Atlantic for many years, necessarily at times encountered favorable conditions of wind and weather; whereas, a single ship making the passage occasionally, as did the clipper ships in later years, might not find so favorable a slant in a lifetime. None of the packet ships that made these remarkable passages could average more than twelve knots for twenty-four hours, and the utmost limit of their speed under the most favorable conditions was not more than fourteen knots, if as much. Most of these ships, however, made the passage from New York to Liverpool at one time or another in sixteen days, and there were few that did not at least once make the run in seventeen days. The secret of the speed of these ships was that they were commanded by men who kept them moving night and day, in all sorts of weather, and never let up on their ships or crews from the time they cast off from the wharf at New York until they ran their lines ashore on the pier-head at Liverpool. While it is true that the New York packet ships were by no means