In the ordinary course of a commercial education, in New England, boys are transferred from school to the merchant’s desk at the age of fourteen or fifteen. When I had reached my fourteenth year it was my good fortune to be received into the counting-house of Elias Hasket Derby, Esq., of Salem; a merchant, who may justly be termed the father of the American commerce to India; one whose enterprise and commercial sagacity were unequalled in his day, and, perhaps, have not been surpassed by any of his successors. To him our country is indebted for opening the valuable trade to Calcutta; before whose fortress his was the first vessel to display the American flag; and, following up the business, he had reaped golden harvests before other merchants came in for a share of them. The first American ships, seen at the Cape of Good Hope and at the Isle of France, belonged to him. His were the first American ships which carried cargoes of cotton from Bombay to China; and among the first ships which made a direct voyage to China and back, was one owned by him. He continued to prosecute a successful business, on an extensive scale, in those countries, until the day of his death. In the transaction of his affairs abroad, he was liberal, greatly beyond the practice in modern times, always desirous that every one, even the foremost hand, should share the good fortune to which he pointed the way; and the long list of masters of ships, who have acquired ample fortunes in his employment, is a proof, both of his discernment in selecting and of his generosity in paying them.
Without possessing a scientific knowledge of the construction and the sparring of ships, Mr. Derby seemed to have an intuitive faculty in judging of models and proportions; and his experiments, in several instances, for the attainment of swiftness of sailing, were crowned with a success unsurpassed in our own or any other country. He built several ships for the India trade, immediately in the vicinity of the counting-house; which afforded me an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the building, sparring, and rigging of ships. The conversations, to which I listened, relating to the countries then newly visited by Americans, the excitement on the return of an adventure from them, and the great profits which were made, always manifest from the result of my own little adventures, tended to stimulate the desire in me of visiting those countries, and of sharing more largely in the advantages they presented. Consequently, after having passed four years in this course of instruction, I became impatient to begin that nautical career on which I had determined, as presenting the most sure and direct means of arriving at independence; and in the summer of 1792 I embarked on my first voyage. It was one of only three months’ duration; but it was sufficient to produce a most thorough disgust of the pursuit, from the severe suffering of sea-sickness; so that, if I had perceived, on my return, any prospect on shore equally promising, I should have abandoned the sea. None, however, presenting itself, I persevered, and finally overcame the difficulty.
Having in this, and other voyages to the East and West Indies and to Europe, acquired the experience and nautical skill deemed sufficient to qualify me for taking the command of a ship, I was invited, in the autumn of 1795, by the eldest son of Mr. Derby, to take charge of his bark Enterprise, and proceed on a voyage to the Isle of Bourbon. The confidence, thus evinced, in intrusting the management of a valuable vessel and cargo to so young and inexperienced a man, for I had then only attained my majority, was very gratifying to my ambition, and was duly appreciated.
In those almost primitive days of our commerce, a coppered vessel was scarcely known in the United States; and on the long East India voyages, the barnacles and grass, which accumulated on the wooden sheathing, retarded the ship’s sailing so much, that a third more time, at least, was required for the passages, than is needed since the practice of sheathing with copper has been adopted. A year, therefore, was generally consumed in a voyage to the Isle of France or Bourbon; and mine was accomplished within that term. The success attending it was very satisfactory to my employer, of which he gave evidence in despatching me again, in the same vessel, on a voyage to Europe, and thence to Mocha, for a cargo of coffee.
While at Havre de Grâce, in the summer of 1797, engaged in making preparations for pursuing the voyage, I had the mortification to learn, by letters from my employer, that some derangement had occurred in his affairs, which made it necessary to abandon the Mocha enterprise, and to place in his hands, with the least possible delay, the funds destined for that object. Among the numerous commercial adventures, in which our merchants, at that time, had been engaged to the eastward of the Cape of Good Hope, no voyage had been undertaken to Mocha. To be the first, therefore, in an untried adventure was highly gratifying to my ambition; and my disappointment was proportionately great when compelled to relinquish it. To have detained the vessel in France, while waiting the slow progress of the sale of the cargo, would have been injudicious; and she was therefore despatched for home, under charge of the mate, William Webb, of Salem.
Being thus relieved from the necessity of an immediate return to the United States, I flattered myself, that, even with the very contracted means which I possessed, I might still engage, with a little assistance, and on a very humble scale, in some enterprise to the Isle of France and India. When, therefore, I had accomplished the business with which I had been charged, by remitting to the owner in Salem his property with me, I began earnestly to put to the test the practicability of the object of which I was so desirous. A coincidence of favorable and very encouraging circumstances aided my views. A friend of mine had become proprietor of a little cutter of thirty-eight tons burden, which had been a packet between Dover and Calais. This vessel had been taken for a debt; and the owner, not knowing what to do with her, offered her to me for a reasonable price, and to pay when I had the ability. This credit would enable me to put all my capital in the cargo, excepting what was required for coppering and fitting the cutter for the contemplated voyage, about five hundred dollars; leaving me fifteen hundred to be invested in the cargo. On making known to others of my friends the plan of my voyage, two of them engaged to embark to the amount of a thousand dollars each, on condition of sharing equally the profits at the end of the voyage. Having become proprietor of the cutter, which, with all additional expenses, cost, ready for sea, about one thousand dollars, an investment of articles best suited to the market of the Isle of France, was purchased to the amount of three thousand five hundred dollars; making vessel and cargo amount to four thousand five hundred. It is not probable that the annals of commerce can furnish another example of an Indiaman and cargo being fitted and expedited on so humble a scale.
I had now the high gratification of uncontrolled action. An innate love of independence, an impatience of restraint, an aversion to responsibility, and a desire to have no other limits to my wanderings than the globe itself, reconciled me to the endurance of fatigues and privations, which I knew to be the unavoidable consequence of navigating in so frail a bark, rather than to possess the comparative ease and comfort, coupled with the restraint and responsibility, which the command of a fine ship belonging to another would present.
As there are, doubtless, many persons, not excepting those, even, who are familiar with commercial and maritime affairs, who will view this enterprise as very hazardous from sea risk, and as offering but a very small prospect of emolument, it is proper, so far as I am able, to do away with such impressions by briefly stating the object I had in view. On my late voyage to the Isle of Bourbon, I had perceived a great deficiency in the number of vessels requisite for the advantageous conveyance of passengers and freight to and from the Isles of France and Bourbon. If my cutter had been built expressly for the purpose, she could not have been more suitable. With a large and beautifully finished cabin, where passengers would be more comfortably accommodated than in many vessels of greater dimensions; with but small freighting room, and requiring, therefore, but little time to load, and of greater speed in sailing than the generality of merchant vessels, I had no doubt of being able to sell her there for more than double the cost; or I might find it to be more advantageous to employ her in freighting between the islands. In either event, I felt entire confidence in being amply remunerated for the time and risk. On the cargo, composed of such articles as my late experience had proved to be most in demand, I had no doubt of making a profit of from fifty to one hundred per cent on its cost. The proceeds of vessel and cargo, invested in the produce of the island, and shipped to Europe or the United States, would, at that time, have yielded a clear gain of thirty-three and one-third per cent. Thus, in the course of one year, I should make two hundred per cent on the original capital; a result which might be considered abundant compensation for the time it would consume, and should take from the enterprise the character of quixotism, with which it had been stigmatized.
As soon as it became known at Havre, that my destination was the Isle of France, some of my friends, anxious for my safety, and perceiving in the enterprise only the ardor and temerity of inexperienced youth, endeavored to dissuade me from it, by painting to me, in glowing colors, the distress and probable destruction I was preparing for myself and men. But, however friendly and considerate the advice, I felt myself more competent to judge of the risk than they were, and, consequently, disregarded them.
The vessel, being all ready for sea on the 20th of September, 1797, was detained several days by the difficulty of procuring men. Those who were engaged one day would desert the next; and the dangerous character of the enterprise having been discussed and admitted among the seamen in port, I began to be seriously apprehensive, that I might not succeed in procuring a crew. At length, however, with much difficulty, and some additional pay, I succeeded in procuring four men; and, having previously engaged a mate, our number was complete.