Note 189 — Chapter IV

Mr. Forbes, one of the owners of this ship, is a remarkable man, and has, during the long period of sixty years, taken so useful and active a part in the development of the maritime resources of his country, that a brief note of his career, for which he has furnished the materials, cannot fail to interest my readers. In 1811, when a boy of only seven years of age, he and his mother were captured at sea on their passage to France, and, again, in 1813, on his return passage. In 1817 he adopted the sea as a profession; and by his genius and industry he obtained the charge of an Indiaman, before he had reached the age of twenty years, and by 1830 he was in command of a ship of his own engaged in the trade with the East. He retired from the sea in 1832, and, in 1839, he became the principal partner in one of the largest mercantile establishments in China—the still well-known house of Russell and Co. In November 1844 his Midas (propeller schooner) left New York for China: she was the first American steam-vessel that went beyond the Cape of Good Hope, and the first to ply on the waters of China. He was also interested in the propeller barque Edith, which left New York for Bombay and China, on January 18th, 1845. She was the first American steamer despatched to British India, and the first square-rigged propeller to China under that flag. In April 1845 he, with others, built an iron paddle-wheel steamer, nearly 300 feet in length, which they named the Iron Witch: she was designed by Ericsson for great speed, to ply on the River Hudson, but as she did not prove fast enough to compete with the regular Albany boats, her engines were transferred to a wooden vessel named the Falcon; the Falcon was the first American steamer that plied to Chagres in connection with the California route, as the Iron Witch had been the first iron passenger steamer that plied on the North River. In 1845 Mr. Forbes launched the first iron steam-tug, built for mercantile purposes in New England, designed so far back as 1838. In 1847 he loaded the ship Bombay with a full cargo of ice for Bombay, the first cargo taken there, a small quantity having previously gone in the Paul Jones in 1843. At that period it used to be a joke that the Americans had nothing to offer in return for the produce of India except ice, apples, and bills! On the 28th of March, 1847, he sailed from Boston to Cork in the sloop of war Jamestown with 800 tons of provisions, nobly contributed by citizens of Boston and other inhabitants of New England for the famine-stricken Irish—an act in itself which constituted a grand and imperishable monument of their goodness. In 1847 he sent to China on the deck of a ship, a small iron propeller called the Firefly, the first vessel of the kind to ply on the Canton river. He states that when in China in 1839-40, he sent the first cargo of tea to England in an American ship, the Oriental. In 1857-8 he built and despatched from Boston, an iron paddle-wheel steamer, called the Argentina, of 100 tons for the survey of the La Plata, which ascended the Parana beyond where any steamer had previously navigated. In 1861 he despatched the iron propeller Pembroke for China, where she was sold. She held the only “letter of marque” issued by the United States’ Government during the great civil war. Such are a few of the leading points in the active life of Mr. R. B. Forbes, of whom his country may be proud, who still in his fresh old age continues his career of usefulness. He now builds boats for the “good boys” of his native town, and I had great pleasure in executing for him the other day an order for no end of miniature blocks, dead-eyes, anchors, and cables.