Set up and electrotyped. Published March, 1910.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
CONTENTS
| CHAPTER | PAGE | |
| I. | In the Beginning | [1] |
| II. | Early Growth | [22] |
| III. | Evolution of the Smuggler and the Pirate | [40] |
| IV. | Before the War of the Revolution | [59] |
| V. | Merchantmen in Battle Array | [85] |
| VI. | Early Enterprise of the United States Merchant Marine | [100] |
| VII. | French and Other Spoliations | [119] |
| VIII. | The British Aggressions | [132] |
| IX. | The Beginnings of Steam Navigation | [150] |
| X. | Privateers, Pirates, and Slavers of the Nineteenth Century | [177] |
| XI. | The Harvest of the Sea before the Civil War | [197] |
| XII. | The Packet Lines and the Clippers | [214] |
| XIII. | Deep-water Steamships—Part I | [240] |
| XIV. | Deep-water Steamships—Part II | [258] |
| XV. | The Critical Period | [277] |
| XVI. | During a Half Century of Depression | [298] |
ILLUSTRATIONS
| South Street, New York; from Maiden Lane, 1834 | [Frontispiece] |
| PAGE | |
| An Early View of Charleston Harbor | [38] |
| Captain Kidd's House at Pearl and Hanover Streets, New York, 1691 | [70] |
| Custom House, Salem | [100] |
| Elias Hasket Derby | [108] |
| An Early Type of Clipper Ship: Maria, of New Bedford, built 1782 | [122] |
| A Virginia Pilot-boat, with a Distant View of Cape Henry, at the Entrance of the Chesapeake | [148] |
| Engines of the Clermont | [158] |
| Clipper Ship Syren | [220] |
| Captain Samuel Samuels | [222] |
| Clipper Ship Witch of the Wave | [232] |
| Sailing of Britannia, February 3, 1844 | [254] |
| Four-master Dirigo, First Steel Ship built in the United States | [298] |
| Seven-masted Schooner Thomas Lawson | [312] |
| A Modern Clipper Ship and a Modern Brig | [318] |
| Cunard S. S. Lusitania | [334] |
THE STORY OF THE MERCHANT MARINE
CHAPTER I
IN THE BEGINNING
THE first vessel built within the limits of the United States for commercial uses was a sea-going pinnace of thirty tons named the Virginia. Her keel was laid at the mouth of the Kennebec River, in Maine, on an unnamed day in the fall of 1607. The story of this vessel, though brief, is of great interest because, in part, of certain peculiarities of rig and hull which, in connection with a sea-going vessel, now seem astounding, but chiefly because it portrays something of the character of the men who, a little later, laid the foundations of the American Republic.