Captain Young once more showed what the old _City of Agra_ could do when she got the chance. Between the N.E. and S.E. trades she lost her fore topgallant mast in a squall, otherwise the passage was without incident. Running the easting down she maintained a splendid average, as her best run was only 270. Captain Young evidently did not believe in high latitudes as he kept her in 39° and 40° S.
_Theophane_ made a good try to beat the _City of Agra’s_ time; she made no less than three attempts to enter the Heads on the ebb tide, but each time the wind dropped in the rip and she was drifted back and at last was compelled to wait until the next day and come in on the flood.
_Ben Voirlich_ again made some big runs, her best day’s work being 349 miles and her best week 2100 miles.
_Loch Maree_ had to be careful not to ship heavy water, as she had four valuable Clydesdale stallions on her main deck. _Thyatira_ was in company with the little _Berean_ for three days to the south’ard, parting from her eventually in 40° S., 131° E. _Berean_ arrived in Launceston on 9th August, 87 days out from Prawle Point.
In 1881, Devitt & Moore launched out with a real big ship, the _Illawarra_, and put her into the Sydney trade. She was not so fine lined as the earlier iron clippers, for the competition of steam and reduced freights were making good carrying capacity a necessity for a money-making ship. Nevertheless _Illawarra_ had a very fair turn of speed, and her average of passages both outward and homeward was under 90 days.
She will be chiefly remembered as a cadet ship under the Brassey scheme; she succeeded the _Hesperus_, and under Captain Maitland carried premium cadets from 1899 to 1907. In that year Devitt & Moore made a contract to take 100 _Warspite_ boys round the world, and as they did not consider the _Illawarra_ large enough, they sold her to the Norwegians and bought the _Port Jackson_.
The Norwegians abandoned the old _Illawarra_ in the North Atlantic during March, 1912, when she was on a passage from Leith to Valparaiso, her crew being taken off by the British steamer _Bengore Head_.
The _Orontes_, Thompson’s new ship, was also more of a deadweight carrier than a clipper. After a plodding life with no very startling adventures, she was run into and sunk on 23rd October, 1903, by the ss. _Oceana_, when almost in sight of Ostend, whither she was bound from a nitrate port.