The repeal of the British Navigation Laws in 1849, after violent opposition in Parliament and the House of Lords, and from almost every British ship builder and ship-owner, gave a new impetus to the building of clipper ships, as the British merchant marine was then for the first time brought into direct competition with the vessels of other nationalities, especially those of the United States. During the years that had elapsed since the closing up of the East India Company in 1832, some effort had been made to improve the model and construction of British merchant ships, and as we have seen, clipper schooners had been built for the Aberdeen service and for the opium trade in China, but no attempt had been made in Great Britain to build clipper ships. British ship-owners still felt secure under the Navigation Laws, in the possession of their carrying trade with the Far East, and paid little attention to the improvements in naval architecture which had been effected in the United States. This was not from ignorance of what had been accomplished there, for the fast American packet ships had long been seen lying in the London and Liverpool docks. In 1848, Lord William Lennox, in an article entitled _A Fortnight in Cheshire_, mentions seeing them. He says: “Here (Liverpool) are some splendid American liners. I went on board the _Henry Clay_ of New York, and received the greatest attention from her commander, Captain Ezra Nye. Nothing can exceed the beauty of this ship; she is quite a model for a frigate. Her accommodations are superior to any sailing vessel I ever saw.” There were also the _Independence_, _Yorkshire_, _Montezuma_, _Margaret Evans_, _New World_, and scores of other fast American packet ships which had been sailing in and out of Liverpool and London for years. The arrivals and departures of these vessels created no deep impression upon the minds of British ship-owners, because they were not at that time competing with sailing vessels for the North Atlantic trade to the United States. The same lack of enterprise was apparent in the men who handled their vessels, as we may see from the following amusing description in De Tocqueville’s _Democracy in America_, published in 1835[5]: