Only a few years before our commerce had extended over the world. Boston—with her eighty wharves and quays, her merchants of shrewd and sound judgment, ability of a high order and comprehensive as well as authentic information—at that time stood at the head of the maritime world. The West Indies, China,—though Canton was the only port to which foreigners were admitted,—and all the ports of Europe had been open to her. The coastwise trade was also enormous. From seventy to eighty sail of vessels had cleared in one day. Long Wharf, at the foot of State Street, was one of the most interesting and busy places.
The treaty between France and America had agreed that "free bottoms made free ships," but during the wars of Napoleon this had been so abridged that trade was now practically destroyed. Then England had insisted upon the right of search, which left every ship at her mercy, and hundreds of our sailors were being taken prisoners. There was a great deal of war talk already. Trade was seriously disturbed.
There was a very strong party opposed to war. What could so young a country, unprepared in every way, do? The government temporized—tried various methods in the hope of averting the storm.
People began to economize; still there was a good deal of money in Boston. Pleasures took on a rather more economical aspect and grew simpler. But business was at a standstill. The Leveretts were among the first to suffer, but Mr. Leverett's equable temperament and serene philosophy kept his family from undue anxiety.
"It's rather a hard beginning for you, my boy," he said, "but you will have years enough to recover. Only I sometimes wish it could come to a crisis and be over, so that we could begin again. It can never be quite as bad as the old war."
Doris commenced school with the Chapman girls at Miss Parker's. Uncle Win had a great fancy for sending her to Mrs. Rowson.
"Wait a year or so," counseled Madam Royall. "Children grow up fast enough without pushing them ahead. Little girlhood is the sweetest time of life for the elderly people, whatever it may be for the girls. I should like Helen and Eudora to stand still for a few years, and Doris is too perfect a little bud to be lured into blossoming. There is something unusual about the child."
When anyone praised Doris, Uncle Win experienced a thrill of delight.
Miss Parker's school was much more aristocratic than Mrs. Webb's. There were no boys and no very small children. Some of the accomplishments were taught. French, drawing and painting, and what was called the "use of the globe," which meant a large globe with all the countries of the world upon it, arranged to turn around on an axis. This was a new thing. Doris was quite fascinated by it, and when she found the North Sea and the Devonshire coast and the "Wash" the girls looked on eagerly and straightway she became a heroine.
But one unlucky recess when she had won in the game of graces a girl said: