The Clippers : 277 



got there with the Intrepid, and long before Winsor was able to com- 

 plete his run in the Rapid. Mrs. Patten was acclaimed by the news- 

 papers and rewarded with a purse raised by public subscription, but 

 Captain Patten was dead in his thirtieth year. 



The clipper captains were often selected for their youth and 

 strength, but despite this many of them were the victims of the 

 winds and the seas, and some also like Captain Patten were struck 

 down by illness. Captain Higham was just as young and just as 

 hopeful as Patten when he succeeded to the command of the N. B. 

 Palmer but his health began to fail and before he could turn her 

 bows homeward he had developed some fever and a persistent cough. 

 Maybe he realized all the time how ill he was but if this was so he 

 never let it interfere with his navigation of the vessel and he drove 

 her to the best of his ability and the last ounce of his strength. He 

 came into New York to tie the record from Shanghai of eighty-two 

 days. A few days later he died of tuberculosis at his home in Brook- 

 lyn. 



The men of the last century turned out great ships; and the ships 

 turned out great men. Together they carried a new age around the 

 world. The arts, the sciences and the inventions were making great 

 strides throughout the nineteenth century. Manufacturing and in- 

 dustry were supplying new goods in increasing volume; trade and 

 communication was pushing out into all parts of the world; year by 

 year it needed new conveyances to keep the different parts of the 

 world in touch with each other. 



The clipper ship came when she was needed and because she was 

 needed. The application of steam to the propulsion of vessels had 

 literally been discussed and experimented with for more than a hun- 

 dred years, but until well beyond the middle of the century was in- 

 adequate to the task of handling the world's affairs. It was only 

 slowly that steam vessels grew up to be able to handle any important 

 part of the world's business with volume and dispatch and safety. 

 These were the responsibility first of the packet and later of the clip- 

 per. They were primarily the responsibility of the United States of 

 America where these services to mankind were developed. They were 

 one of America's most important contributions to the organized life 

 of the world. 



The great ships appealed to so many different aspects of our hu- 

 man character that when anyone starts thinking about them some 

 special interest or enthusiasm is likely to appropriate the center of 

 the stage. The artist has put on canvas the beautiful lines of their 



