The Philadelphia-built Indiamen and China ships of that day had another and even more important element of safety: Given plenty of sea-room and clear weather, with sailing wind, no British or French cruiser of their time could get anywhere near them. For example, the “Rebecca Sims,” built by Samuel Bowers in 1801, and overhauled, coppered, and newly sparred and rigged in the winter of 1806-07, passed Cape Henlopen the 10th of May, 1807, and took a Liverpool pilot aboard off the mouth of the Mersey the 24th, having run from the Delaware Capes to the Mersey in fourteen days. Notwithstanding all the improvements in clipper ships after her time, the “Rebecca Sims” still holds the sailing record between Henlopen and Liverpool! The “Woodrup Sims,” built for the same owner by Mr. Humphreys in 1801, was chartered for the China trade in 1808. She passed out of the Capes the 8th of April and anchored in Whampoa Roads, Canton, the 6th of August, one hundred and seventeen days from the Delaware. But from this must be deducted two days hove-to in Table Bay, Cape of Good Hope; three days in port at the Isle of France (now the Mauritius), and two days hove-to in Angier Road, Java Head, the actual running time having been one hundred and ten days. Manifestly, ships capable of that kind of sailing had little need to fear the cruisers of England or of France. To give an approximate idea of the value of Philadelphia’s East India and China trade in its halcyon days, it may be related that in the autumn of 1812 the ship “Montesquieu,” belonging to Stephen Girard, left Canton for the Delaware _via_ Batavia. At the latter port she took on board, in addition to her China cargo from Canton, a rich freight of spices. She left Batavia before the news of the War of 1812 reached there. Her commander had intended to touch only at the Cape of Good Hope on his voyage home, that being a British colony. But when about five hundred miles east of the Cape he spoke a Portuguese vessel bound for Macao, whose captain informed him that England and the United States were at war. He then ran for Tristan d’Acunha, where he obtained needed supplies of water and wood, with such fresh provisions as the island afforded. Thence shaping his course homeward he arrived off the Capes of the Delaware in April, 1813. There she was brought to and taken by the British frigate “Tenedos.” But Mr. Girard was on the alert, and, judging about the time she ought to arrive, had been waiting for her in a cottage he owned at or near Lewes, and she was taken in plain sight of the shore. He at once put off in a pilot-yawl under a flag of truce, boarded the British frigate, and after some parley succeeded in ransoming the “Montesquieu” for £37,000 sterling in specie bills on London! He then took his ship up the river to Philadelphia. The blockade had raised the value of China and East India products enormously in the American market, and Mr. Girard realized the handsome sum of $1,220,000