re the first sloop was
built to ply regularly on the Hudson between New York and Albany. She was
of 100 tons, and carried passengers only. Sometimes the trip occupied a
week, and the owner of the sloop established an innovation by supplying
beds, provisions, and wines for his passengers. Between Boston and New
York communication was still irregular, passengers waiting for cargoes.
But small as this maritime interest now seems, more money was invested in
it, and it occupied more men, than any other American industry, save only
agriculture.

To this period belong such shipowners as William Gray, of Boston, who in
1809, though he had sixty great square-rigged ships in commission,
nevertheless heartily approved of the embargo with which President
Jefferson vainly strove to combat the outrages of France and England.
Though the commerce of those days was world-wide, its methods--particularly
on the bookkeeping side--were primitive. "A good captain," said
Merchant Gray, "will sail with a load of fish to the West
Indies, hang up a stocking in the cabin on arriving, put therein hard
dollars as he sells fish, and pay out when he buys rum, molasses, and
sugar, and hand in the stocking on his return in full of all accounts."
The West Indies, though a neighboring market, were far from monopolizing
the attention of the New England shipping merchants. Ginseng and cash were
sent to China for silks and tea, the voyage each way, around the
tempestuous Horn, occupying six months. In 1785 the publication of the
journals of the renowned explorer, Captain Cook, directed the ever-alert
minds of the New Englanders to the great herds of seal and sea-otters on
the northwestern coast of the United States, and vessels were soon faring
thither in pursuit of fur-bearing animals, then plentiful, but now bidding
fair to become as rare as the sperm-whale. A typical expedition of this
sort was that of the ship "Columbia," Captain Kendrick, and the sloop
"Washington," Captain Gray, which sailed September 30, 1787, bound to the
northwest coast and China. The merchant who saw his ships drop down the
bay bound on such a voyage said farewell to them for a long time--perhaps
forever. Years must pass before he could know whether the money he had
invested, the cargo he had adventured, the stout ships he had dispatched,
were to add to his fortune or to be at last a total loss. Perhaps for
months he might be going about the wharves and coffee-houses, esteeming
hi