most ceased to have a place in the long list of our national
industries. Its implements and the relics of old-time cruises fill niches
in museums as memorials of a practically extinct calling. Along the
wharves of New Bedford and New London a few old brigs lie rotting, but so
effective have been the ravages of time that scarcely any of the once
great fleet survive even in this invalid condition. The whales have been
driven far into the Arctic regions, whither a few whalers employing the
modern and unsportsmanlike devices of steam and explosives, follow them
for a scanty profit. But the glory of the whale fishery is gone, leaving
hardly a record behind it. In its time it employed thousands of stout
sailors; it furnished the navy with the material that made that branch of
our armed service the pride and glory of the nation. It explored unknown
seas and carried the flag to undiscovered lands. Was not an Austrian
exploring expedition, interrupted as it was about to take possession of
land in the Antarctic in the name of Austria by encountering an American
whaler, trim and trig, lying placidly at anchor in a harbor where the
Austrian thought no man had ever been? It built up towns in New England
that half a century of lethargy has been unable to kill. And so if its
brigs--and its men--now molder, if its records are scanty and its history
unwritten, still Americans must ever regard the whale fishery as one of
the chief factors in the building of the nation--one of the most admirable
chapters in our national story.

CHAPTER V

THE PRIVATEERS--PART TAKEN BY MERCHANT SAILORS IN BUILDING UP THE
PRIVATEERING SYSTEM--LAWLESS STATE OF THE HIGH SEAS--METHOD OF
DISTRIBUTING PRIVATEERING PROFITS--PICTURESQUE FEATURES OF THE
CALLING--THE GENTLEMEN SAILORS--EFFECT ON THE REVOLUTIONARY
ARMY--PERILS OF PRIVATEERING--THE OLD JERSEY PRISON SHIP--EXTENT OF
PRIVATEERING--EFFECT ON AMERICAN MARINE ARCHITECTURE--SOME FAMOUS
PRIVATEERS--THE "CHASSEUR," THE "PRINCE DE NEUFCHATEL," THE "MAMMOTH"--THE
SYSTEM OF CONVOYS AND THE "RUNNING SHIPS"--A TYPICAL PRIVATEERS'
BATTLE--THE "GENERAL ARMSTRONG" AT FAYAL--SUMMARY OF THE WORK OF THE
PRIVATEERS

In the early days of a new community the citizen, be he never so peaceful,
is compelled, perforce, to take on the ways and the trappings of the
fighting man. The pioneer is half hunter, half scout. The farmer on the
outposts of civilization must be more than half a soldier; the cowboy or
ranchman o