Young Girard gravitated from the position of cabin-boy to clerk.
From this to mate came by easy stages, and so much as a matter of course that it isn't worth while to mention how.
By the law of France no man under twenty-five could be captain of a ship, but when Girard was twenty-two we find a shipowner falsifying the record and putting the boy down as twenty-five, on the obliging oath of the boy's father, who we hope was duly paid for his pains.
At twenty-four, Captain Stephen Girard sailed his sloop, "L'Amiable Louise," around Sandy Hook and up New York Bay. Ship-captains then were merchants, with power to sell, trade and buy.
The venture was a success, and young Girard took the liberty of picking up a cargo and sailing for New Orleans—his knowledge of French being a valuable asset for that particular destination.
Matters were prosperous, and Girard was twenty-six, just the age of that heroic captain under whose care he first set sail, and the age of the Corsican when he conquered Italy.
Girard had ceased to wonder about boys braving waves and going upon the stormy sea in ships.
It was in July, Seventeen Hundred Seventy-six,—call it July Fourth—that Captain Stephen Girard was skirting the coast of the Atlantic, feeling his way through a fog toward New York. He was not sure of his course and was sailing by dead-reckoning.
Suddenly the fog lifted. The sun stood out, a great golden ball in the sky. The young captain swung his glass along the horizon and with his one good eye saw a sail—it was bearing down upon him.
It was coming closer.