Mr. Robert B. Minturn, an eminent merchant and shipowner of New York, was the last witness examined before the Committee of the Lords. He was owner of portions of many ships, and part owner in the lines of packets between New York and London, and between New York and Liverpool. He traded also with India and China, and was also owner of whalers which went to the South Seas. Like most others of the high-class merchants trading to foreign countries, he was neither concerned in the inland trade of the United States nor the coasting trade. Having furnished evidence as to the progress of American tonnage, he stated that the New York packets, which were universally acknowledged to be the best description of ships built in the United States, having all of them a portion of live oak in them, cost, exclusively of their cabins, about $70 per ton, equal to about 14_l._ 10_s._ per ton, sterling. In this estimate it must be remarked that the American tonnage differs from our own.[94] [Sidenote: Details about American ships.] The American classification of ships also differs from that at Lloyd’s. There the rating depends on the age, the material, its quality, together with the quantity of the fastenings, whether copper or iron, and the mode of workmanship. The oak used in New York comes principally from Virginia, the live oak entirely from Florida; and the sheathing-copper and iron are those supplied from England, iron from other countries then paid a duty of 30 per cent.: sheathing-copper was free of duty, but cake or pig-copper, from which bolts are manufactured in America, paid 5 per cent. Sails were, till recently, brought from England, Holland, and Russia; but hemp-canvas was then being made in America. Cotton sail-cloth had for a long time been used to a considerable extent. Shipwrights’ wages in the United States were then $2½ a day, about 10_s._ 6_d._ sterling. In New York, these artificers work only ten hours per day on new work, and nine hours on old work; but repairs of ships were more expensive in England than in the United States. In the equipment, as we have seen, of American ships, great attention was paid to lessening manual labour by capstans, winches, and other contrivances; and as they were much more lightly rigged in proportion to their tonnage, they were sailed with fewer men; the average number being about two and a half sailors to every 100 tons in a packet ship ranging from 900 to 1200 tons; but in a common American freighting ship, where despatch was of less importance, the proportion is even smaller. For instance, the _Henry Clay_, already mentioned, 1207 tons, American, and 1467 tons, English, had thirty seamen, two boys, and a carpenter, besides the captain, four mates, cook, and steward: 40 all told.