The proudest seafaring man in the world at that period was the master of a Liverpool packet. When the wind served at the hour of sailing, he set all plain sail on his vessel as she lay at her pier, laid all flat aback, drove her stern first into the stream, turned her around, and then, while the spectators cheered themselves hoarse, he sent her rippling down to the sea. And when he returned he sometimes arrived in the river with royals set and sailed her into her berth with less fuss and jar than the ferryboat in the near-by slip was making. Indeed, tugs were used before 1835 only when the wind was foul or wholly lacking, and for years after that it was a matter of pride as well as profit to save the tug bill ($140) whenever possible. Most of the newspapers that have been quoted in this chapter were printed in England. It is a significant fact that the English papers, which represented the attitude of the English merchants of the day, gave the American packets unstinted praise. The acrid jealousy that English merchants had shown during all the long years before the War of 1812 was silenced. How did it happen that these "Yankee" seamen were treated so well? The British House of Commons having appointed a committee in 1835 "to inquire into the cause of shipwrecks in the British merchant service," the London _Courier_, on August 18 and 20, 1836, printed a number of extracts from the committee's report. One of the paragraphs in that report is of special interest:-- "45. _American Shipping._--That the committee cannot conclude its labor without calling attention to the fact, that the ships of the United States of America, frequenting the ports of England, are stated by several witnesses to be superior to those of a similar class amongst the ships of Great Britain, _the commanders and officers being generally considered to be more competent_ as seamen and navigators, and more uniformly persons of education, than the commanders and officers of British ships of a similar size and class, trading from England to America; while the _seamen_ of the United States are considered to be more carefully selected and _more efficient_; that American ships sailing from Liverpool to New York, have preference over English vessels sailing to the same port, _both as to freight and to rate of insurance_; and _higher wages being given_, their whole equipment is maintained in a higher state of perfection, so that fewer losses occur; and as the American shipping have increased of late years in the proportion of 12¾ per cent per annum while the British shipping have increased within the same period 1½ per cent per annum," the superior growth of the American merchant marine, as well as the higher wages paid, was taking the best of the British sailors into the service of the American ships.