Between the fore and main masts of the East Indiamen were the main topmast staysail, main topgallant staysail and main royal staysail. Between the main and mizzen were the mizzen topmast staysail, and mizzen t’gallant staysail, but a royal was seldom set on this mast. Abaft came the spanker or driver, often with the addition on the after-leach of a ring-tail. Stun’sles, too, were used. But in those days although these East Indiamen carried more hands than a sailing ship of like size does to-day, yet every night at sunset all light sails were taken off her and the ship was snugged down for the night. Still the old bluff-bowed East Indiaman had had its day when the young Republic of the United States, encouraged by the opportunity which freedom from war now afforded, introduced on the sea ships with clipper-bow that literally cleft the waves instead of hitting them and retarding the passage of the hull through the water. With a freedom of mind which has ever characterised the American, both as a nation and an individual, the marine architects on the other side of the Atlantic threw convention still further to the winds by modifying the design of the stern in such a way that instead of squatting and holding the dead water the ship slid through it cleanly with a minimum of resistance. Possessing unlimited supplies of timber, they were in a position to build ships at a far lower rate than we in this country. In fact, so much was this the case that in England between the years 1841 and 1847 no fewer than forty shipbuilders went bankrupt in Sunderland alone. The one object of the American designer was to build a ship that should sail every other craft off the seas and so obtain the maximum of trade-carrying. Besides the improvement in bow and stern they lengthened the ship till she became five and six times longer than in breadth. This gave an opportunity of adding a fourth mast to the ship and to carry more sails. The sails themselves were improved in cut, being no longer mere bags to hold the wind, but of a “close-textured, dazzlingly-white canvas.” In exact contradistinction to the East Indiamen, these Yankee ships did not reef down in anticipation of the gale that was to follow hours after, but took in sail reluctantly. The part played by the American clippers during the period that saw the close of the great wars and the beginning of the American Civil War is one of vast importance to the development of the sailing ship of any size. Even when steamers began to cross the Atlantic in 1840, these wonderful clippers were able to cross in about a fortnight. In every way superior to the old cotton-ships running between New York and Havre in the early ’thirties, the clippers of the ’forties and ’fifties were seaworthy as well as fast. One of the most famous was the _Flying Cloud_ built in 1851, which performed the sensational run of 427 knots in twenty-four hours when on a passage from New York to San Francisco.