Word: indiamen
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...spaceflights that cannot be considered now because of tremendous costs. J.P.L.'s Louis Friedman thinks that a flotilla of sunjammers could embark on a manned Mars mission by the end of the century, and foresees a day when fleets of huge kites shuttle through space-as the East Indiamen plied the oceans three centuries ago-making regular stops at Mercury, Venus, Mars or the asteroids...
...centuries past, the fear of pirates was always uppermost in the thoughts of Dutch merchant skippers sailing their heavy-laden East Indiamen along the coasts of Africa. No such grim foreboding clutched the heart of Johannes Van Delft, master of the tiny (265 tons) Dutch coaster Combinatie, as he put out of Tangier Harbor into the Strait of Gibraltar, bound for Malta, one day last month, laden with $100,000 worth of U.S. cigarettes. It was the 20th century; the sky was blue overhead; ten kegs of good Holland beer were stowed below, to complement the vessel's small...
Armed East Indiamen, huge square-sails set to the trade winds, brought British merchants to China in the 18th century. Ashore, the traders were treated to fireworks and feasting by hong merchants, who alone among Chinese were permitted to deal with foreigners. But opposition to the old East India Co. was growing in England. Company Surgeon William Jardine saw his chance. He and his partner, James Matheson, a fellow Scot, doubled as consular representatives of foreign countries. Soon Jardine, Matheson & Co. were making millions in the China trade...
Fast clipper ships replaced the slow-moving East Indiamen, and China tea was the profitable cargo. To prevent idlers from wasting his business hours, Merchant Jardine kept no chair in his office but his own. He made huge deals with Bombay Tycoon Jamsetjee Jeejeebboy. Hundreds of young Englishmen, attracted by high wages & high life, flocked to China. Race tracks were built, blood horses imported. Gibb, Livingstone & Co. (John Gibb was a member of the Race Club Committee) never questioned the living expenses of their young employees unless the soda-water bills for their mess exceeded $500 a month...
...rooms from Haverhill, Mass., furnished in that suave and hardy decorum that obtained when shipowners sat smoking in them, seeing in smoke their clippers beat round the Horn, their East Indiamen, under a cloudy tower of sail, treading the huddle of the seas...