The competition in the China tea trade continued, the British clippers of this time made the rivalry very keen, and it is always a matter of regret that there never was another real race between the two countries. But now we must see how the California gold affected the clipper. Briefly these are the facts. In 1848 San Francisco was a mere hamlet, but this sudden discovery of a means to wealth caused a tremendous flow of emigration to the West. Every one wanted to go, and every one wanted to get there in the quickest possible time. Leaving out the difficulties in those days of transcontinental travel, the only way possible was by means of ships. The American clipper was thus the solution, and they were therefore built in great numbers and in a small space of time. In fact within four years 160 were launched, and they sailed from New York to San Francisco in the remarkable time of 100 to 120 days. Here, then, was yet another incentive to the increase of the Mercantile Marine, to the shipbuilders and to those attracted by the sea. It is comparable only to the impetus which we have seen was received by the Elizabethan seamen. There has seldom been in history such an extensive and speedy migration of people, all anxious to get rich quickly. Once again the ship was invaluable in the service of man. In the year 1849 over 90,000 passengers landed in that San Franciscan hamlet from ships. On the other hand, it became most difficult to get crews to bring the ships back; for the seamen, too, had gone gold-seeking as soon as the ship had anchored. The California clipper period, as Captain Clark says in his _The Clipper Ship Era_, covers the period 1850 to 1860, and it is during the first four of these years that nearly all the 160 ships were built, most of them being constructed in the neighbourhood of New York and Boston. It is claimed for them that they were the fastest sailing ships which the world ever saw, and the skippers cracked-on because these vessels were able to earn enormous rates if only the passengers could be landed at their port in the quickest time. Every one was making money—the shipowner, captain, crew and then the gold-seekers. Ashore the riggers, shipwrights, painters, sail-makers, metal workers, spar-makers, pump-makers, blacksmiths, carpenters, caulkers were in such demand that there was prosperity for all, and plenty of it. And it is to this period that a good many of the fast-dying sea-chanties can be traced.