Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 154.djvu/196
triumphant reception. By deed of gift, dated 8th July 1857, the five original co-owners of the America presented the famous cup to the New York Yacht Club to be a perpetual international challenge trophy open to the world for all yachts from thirty to three hundred tons of the Customs measurement of the country in which they were built; it being clearly laid down that yacht clubs, not yacht owners, were to be the challengers, that a club was to be always the holder of the cup.
The wildest rumours were afloat as to what was going to become of the America; and it was asserted that the heir-apparent had acquired her for a fabulous sum. In September she did change hands, becoming the property of the Hon. John de Blaquière of the Indian army, subsequently Lord de Blaquière, at the very moderate figure of 4000 guineas. The America's new owner wintered in her in the Mediterranean that season, and found her a very comfortable if not very roomy cruiser. In the July of the following year he sailed her in the Royal Victoria Yacht Club's race for a Queen's Cup against eight Americanised English vessels, and two of our cutters beat her, the times of arrival being excitingly close, and thus: Arrow, 6 hours 58 minutes 42 seconds; Musquito, 6 hours 58 minutes 44 seconds; America, 7 hours minutes 45 seconds. This must have been a fairly true trial, as a "five-knot westerly breeze" blew all day; but it must be remembered that the schooner had her old cotton sails of the previous season, and that they must have been considerably "bagged " by the winter's cruise. Lord de Blaquière was still so confident in his ship's speed that he challenged the world, America barred, to sail any vessel not bigger than the America against her, for anything from £500 to £1000. The cartel was accepted for the Sverige by a very fine sportsman, Mr Nicholas Beekman. The Sverige was a schooner of rather less than the America's tonnage, built at Stockholm in 1852, and distinctly on her rival's lines. Inside the Wight, October 9, 1852, the match was sailed; but the victory rested with the English lord. The America, the most famous yacht ever constructed, was subsequently resold across the herring-pond, and was good enough to beat the British Cambria in 1870, though finally she was turned to trading purposes. But she revolutionised English yachting; and no British racer launched since 1851 has been quite what she would have been had this wonderful little ship never crossed the Atlantic. So much for the America herself; and now for the history of the subsequent struggle for her cup. The immediate result of her visit to British waters was the lengthening by the bow, and Americanisation of everything afloat a policy carried to the length of caricature, and bringing its own reaction. It is, however, satisfactory to chronicle that when in 1853 the American sloop Silvie came over to repeat the America's performance, she instantly found more than her match in the big British cutter Julia.
On the 11th December 1866, three American schooners, the Fleetwing, Vesta, and Henrietta, 203 tons, Mr J. Gordon Bennett, were started from Sandy Hook on an ocean match to Cowes for a sweep of £600 each, or £1800. The intrepid owners encountered violent weather mid-Atlantic, but