I have related these circumstances, because I think they are connected
with causes that have a great influence on the success of American
navigation. On passing several of the British ships to-day, I observed
that their officers were below, or at least out of sight; and in one
instance, a vessel of a very fair mould, and with every appearance of a
good sailer, actually lay with some of her light sails aback, long enough
to permit us to come up with and pass her. The Hudson probably went with
this wind some fifteen or twenty miles farther than this loiterer; while I
much question if she could have gone as far, had the latter been well
attended to. The secret is to be found in the fact, that so large a
portion of American ship-masters are also ship-owners, as to have erected
a standard of activity and vigilance, below which few are permitted to
fall. These men work for themselves, and, like all their countrymen, are
looking out for something more than a mere support.

About noon we got a Cowes pilot. He brought no news, but told us the
English vessel I have just named was sixty days from Leghorn, and that she
had been once a privateer. We were just thirty from New York.

We had distant glimpses of the land all day, and several of the passengers
determined to make their way to the shore in the pilot-boat. These Channel
craft are sloops of about thirty or forty tons, and are rather picturesque
and pretty boats, more especially when under low sail. They are usually
fitted to take passengers, frequently earning more in this way than by
their pilotage. They have the long sliding bowsprit, a short lower mast,
very long cross-trees, with a taunt topmast, and, though not so "wicked"
to the eye, I think them prettier objects at sea than our own schooners.
The party from the Hudson had scarcely got on board their new vessel when
it fell calm, and the master and myself paid them a visit. They looked
like a set of smugglers waiting for the darkness to run in. On our return
we rowed round the ship. One cannot approach a vessel at sea, in this
manner, without being struck with the boldness of the experiment which
launched such massive and complicated fabrics on the ocean. The pure water
is a medium almost as transparent as the atmosphere, and the very keel is
seen, usually so near the surface, in consequence of refraction, as to
give us but a very indifferent opinion of the security of the whole
machine. I do not remember ever looking