British builders had made such rapid progress in design and construction that the days of Yankee preference in the China trade had passed.

The Stars and Stripes floated over ships waiting idle in Manila Bay, at Shanghai, Hong-Kong, and Calcutta.

The tide of commerce had slackened abroad as well as at home and the surplus of deep-water tonnage was world-wide.
In earlier generations afloat, the American spirit had displayed amazing recuperative powers.

The havoc of the Revolution had been unable to check it, and its vigor and aggressive enterprise had never been more notable than after the blows dealt by the Embargo, the French Spoliations, and the War of 1812.

The conditions of trade and the temper of the people were now so changed that this mighty industry, aforetime so robust and resilient, was unable to recover from such shocks as the panic of 1857 and the Civil War.