In one of the most entertaining and instructive chapters of “Walden,” Thoreau takes the trouble to explain the business of a successful shipping merchant of Salem. The description of his activities may be fairly applied to Elias Hasket Derby and his times.
“To oversee all the details yourself in person; to be at once pilot and captain, and owner and underwriter; to buy and sell and keep the accounts; to read every letter received, and write or read every letter sent; to superintend the discharge of imports night and day; to be upon many ports of the coast almost at the same time—often the richest freights will be discharged upon a Jersey shore; to be your own telegraph, unweariedly sweeping the horizon, speaking all vessels bound coastwise; to keep up a steady dispatch of commodities for the supply of such a distant and exorbitant market; to keep yourself informed of the state of the markets, prospects of war and peace everywhere, and anticipate the tendencies of trade and civilization. Taking advantage of the results of all exploring expeditions using new passages and all improvements in navigation; charts to be studied, the position of reefs and new lights and buoys to be corrected, for by the error of some calculator the vessel often splits upon a rock that should have reached a friendly pier; universal science to be kept pace with, studying the lives of all great discoverers and navigators, great adventurers and merchants, from Hanno and the Phœnicians down to our day; in fine, account of stock must be taken from time to time, to know how you stand. It is such a labor to task the faculties of a man—such problems of profit and loss, of interest, of tare and tret, and gauging of all kinds in it, as demand a universal knowledge.”
There is to-day nothing at all comparable with the community of interests which bound all Salem in a kinship with the sea and its affairs. Every ship for China or India carried a list of “adventures,” small speculations entrusted to the captain or supercargo, contributed by boys and girls, sweethearts, brothers, mothers and wives. In the log of Mr. Derby’s ship, the Astrea, for a voyage to Batavia and Canton are the following “memoranda” of “adventures,” which were to be sold by the captain and the profits brought home to the investors:
“Captain Nathaniel West. 15 boxes spermacetti candles. 1 pipe Teneriffe wine.”
“James Jeffry. 1 cask ginseng.”
“George Dodge. 10 Dollars. 1 pipe Madeira wine.”
In searching among the old logs for these “adventures,” the author found “on board Ship Messenger of Salem, 1816”:
“Memorandum of Miss Harriet Elkin’s Adventure.
“Please to purchase if at Calcutta two net bead with draperies; if at Batavia or any spice market, nutmegs, and mace, or if at Canton, Two Canton Crape shawls of the enclosed colors at $5 per shawl. Enclosed is $10. Signed.
“Henrietta Elkins.”