As
neutrals, the ships of the United States could trade with all the
battling peoples; while any vessel flying a European flag was sure to
find an enemy somewhere on the broad seas, and suffer confiscation.
While France was giving her farmers and mechanics to follow in the
glorious footsteps of Napoleon, the industrious citizens of the United
States were reaping a rich reward in trade with the warring nation.
The farmers received the highest prices for their grain, the ingenious
mechanics of New England reaped fortunes from the sale of their wares,
and the shipyards were filled to their greatest capacity with the
graceful frames of fast clipper vessels destined for the trade with
Europe. In 1780 the shipping of the United States was confined to a
few coasting-vessels, and the American flag was seldom seen beyond the
Atlantic. Fifteen years later, the white sails of American ships
dotted every sea, and but few European ports did not show some trim
clipper floating in the harbor, bearing at her peak the stars and
stripes.

From Maine to Georgia the people were building ships, and manning
them. The vast forests resounded with the strokes of the woodman's
axe, getting out the timber; and the seaport towns were given over to
ship-wrights, who worked day and night at their craft. In New England
there sprung up a race of hardy seamen. Boys of twelve or fourteen ran
away to sea, made a coasting voyage or two, and, after a voyage to
some European port, became captains of ocean-going ships,--often
before they were twenty years of age. The people of the coastwise
towns of New England can tell of hundreds of such cases. There was
"Nat" Palmer of Stonington, who shipped when a boy of fourteen, and,
after four years' coasting, was made second mate of the brig
"Herselias," bound around Cape Horn, for seals. On his first voyage
the young mate distinguished himself by discovering the South Shetland
Islands, guided by the vague hints of a rival sealer, who knew of the
islands, and wished them preserved for his own trade, as the seals
swarm there by the hundred thousands. The discovery of these islands,
and the cargo of ten thousand skins brought home by the "Herselias,"
made young Palmer famous; and, at the age of twenty, he was put in
command of a sloop, and sent to the South Seas again. One day he found
his passage in the desired direction blocked by two long islands, with
a narrow opening between them. To go around the islands would