85 a Baltimore ship showed the Stars and Stripes in
the Canton River, China. In 1788 the ship "Atlantic," of Salem, visited
Bombay and Calcutta. The effect of being barred from British ports was
not, as the British had expected, to put an abrupt end to American
maritime enterprise. It only sent our hardy seamen on longer voyages, only
brought our merchants into touch with the commerce of the most distant
lands. Industry, like men, sometimes thrives upon obstacles.

[Illustration: "AFTER A BRITISH LIEUTENANT HAD PICKED THE BEST OF HER
CREW"]

For twenty-five years succeeding the adoption of the Constitution the
maritime interest--both shipbuilding and shipowning--thrived more,
perhaps, than any other gainful industry pursued by the Americans. Yet it
was a time when every imaginable device was employed to keep our people
out of the ocean-carrying trade. The British regulations, which denied us
access to their ports, were imitated by the French. The Napoleonic wars
came on, and the belligerents bombarded each other with orders in council
and decrees that fell short of their mark, but did havoc among neutral
merchantmen. To the ordinary perils of the deep the danger of
capture--lawful or unlawful--by cruiser or privateer, was always to be
added. The British were still enforcing their so-called "right of search,"
and many an American ship was left short-handed far out at sea, after a
British naval lieutenant had picked the best of her crew on the pretense
that they were British subjects. The superficial differences between an
American and an Englishman not being as great as those between an albino
and a Congo black, it is not surprising that the boarding officer should
occasionally make mistakes--particularly when his ship was in need of
smart, active sailors. Indeed, in those years the civilized--by which at
that period was meant the warlike--nations were all seeking sailors.
Dutch, Spanish, French, and English were eager for men to man their
fighting ships; hired them when they could, and stole them when they must.
It was the time of the press gang, and the day when sailors carried as a
regular part of their kit an outfit of women's clothing in which to escape
if the word were passed that "the press is hot to-night." The United
States had never to resort to impressment to fill its navy ships'
companies, a fact perhaps due chiefly to the small size of its navy in
comparison with the seafaring population it had to draw from.