Public-domain ebook
The Colonial Clippers
Language: en1,408 downloads on Project Gutenberg
Subjects
In: History - Other·History - British·History - Modern (1750+)
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #52897.
About this book
The work is a detailed reference on British merchant‑marine clippers, especially those that carried emigrants to Australia and New Zealand in the mid‑nineteenth century. The author begins by explaining his painstaking method of compiling passage records from logbooks, captains’ reports and even Lloyd’s, noting the unreliability of oral recollection and the loss of many original sources as the “old timers” have died. He frames the book as a preservation project, offering both narrative histories of individual vessels, such as the Marco Polo, Lightning, and the _James Baines_, and extensive tables of outward and homeward passages, complemented by rare lithographs and photographs that are becoming increasingly scarce.
Written in a scholarly yet enthusiastic tone, the text reflects the Victorian era’s fascination with progress, exploration, and the romance of the sea. Its dense factual style, abundant footnotes, and period‑appropriate language will appeal to maritime historians, model‑ship builders, and readers who relish exhaustive accounts of sailing technology and colonial trade rather than a fast‑moving novel.
The opening · free to read
I have made rather a point of giving passage records, as they are an everlasting theme of interest when seamen get together and yarn about old ships. The memory is notoriously unreliable where sailing records are concerned, so I have been most careful to check these from logbooks and Captains’ reports. Even Lloyd’s I have found to be out by a day or two on occasions.
A great deal of my material has been gathered bit by bit through the past 25 or 30 years. Alas! many of the old timers, who so kindly lent me abstract logs and wrote me interesting letters, have now passed away.
The illustrations, I hope, will be appreciated, for these, whether they are old lithographs or more modern photographs, are more and more difficult to unearth, and a time will soon come when they will be unprocurable.
Indeed, if there is any value in this book it is because it records and illustrates a period in our sea history, the memory of which is already fast fading into the misty realms of the past. To preserve this memory, before it becomes impossible, is one of the main objects, if not the main object, of my work.
_Note._—As in my China Clippers, when using the word “mile” I always mean the sea mile of 6080 feet, not the land mile of 5280 feet.
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