CHAPTER XIII
CALIFORNIA CLIPPERS OF 1852—THE "SOVEREIGN OF THE SEAS"
AS one by one the California clippers came home from Asiatic ports or round Cape Horn from San Francisco in 1852, it was found that almost all of them needed a pretty thorough overhauling aloft. The masts, spars, and rigging of the Flying Cloud were fine examples of the skill of her sailors in clapping on fishings, lashings, stoppers, and seizings, while her topmast fids, crushed and broken, were taken up to the Astor House and exhibited to the admiration of the town. Her owners, Grinnell, Minturn & Co., had her log from New York to San Francisco printed in gold letters on white silk for distribution among their friends, and Captain Creesy fled to his home in Marblehead in order to escape notoriety.
The Sea Serpent, Eclipse, and Stag-Hound were in much the same condition aloft as the Flying Cloud, while the Witchcraft, on the voyage from San Francisco to Hong-kong had lost her main and mizzen masts with all sails and rigging attached, during a severe typhoon in the China Sea. The Tornado, commanded by Captain O. R. Mumford, bound from San Francisco to New York, had
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