The James Monroe.

On a snowy morning in January 1818 a cold wind blew across the harbor of New York as Capt. James Watkinson paced the deck of the James Monroe and waited for Saint Paul's clock to strike ten, the advertised time for the ship to pull away from its berth. The James Monroe carried only seven passengers, a shipment of apples, and a letter bag only recently hustled down from a harbor coffeehouse, a light load indeed for a ship of 424 tons. The ship's owners, however, wanted the James Monroe to sail on time, whatever the load. Three months previously advertisements in the New York papers had announced that beginning in January 1818 the Amity, Courier, Pacific, and James Monroe would begin sailing to and from New York and Liverpool in regular succession on specified days each month throughout the year. So precisely at...