city
of cabin-boy. He used to boast, late in life, that he began the world
with sixpence in his pocket. Quite enough for a cabin-boy.

For nine years he sailed between Bordeaux and the French West Indies,
returning at length with the rank of first mate, or, as the French
term it, lieutenant of his vessel. He had well improved his time. Some
of the defects of his early education he had supplied by study, and it
is evident that he had become a skilful navigator. It was then the law
of France that no man should command a vessel who was not twenty-five
years old, and had not sailed two cruises in a ship of the royal navy.
Girard was but twenty-three, and had sailed in none but
merchant-vessels. His father, however, had influence enough to procure
him a dispensation; and in 1773 he was licensed to command. He appears
to have been scarcely just to his father when he wrote, sixty-three
years after:

"I have the proud satisfaction of knowing that my conduct,
my labor, and my economy have enabled me to do one hundred
times more for my relations than they all together have ever
done for me since the day of my birth."

In the mere amount of money expended, this may have been true; but it
is the _start_ toward fortune that is so difficult. His father,
besides procuring the dispensation, assisted him to purchase goods for
his first commercial venture. At the age of twenty-four, we find him
sailing to the West Indies; not indeed in command of the vessel, but
probably as mate and supercargo, and part owner of goods to the value
of three thousand dollars. He never trod his native land again. Having
disposed of his cargo and taken on board another, he sailed for New
York, which he reached in July, 1774. The storm of war, which was soon
to sweep commerce from the ocean, was already muttering below the
horizon, when Stephen Girard, "mariner and merchant," as he always
delighted to style himself, first saw the land wherein his lot was to
be cast. For two years longer, however, he continued to exercise his
twofold vocation. An ancient certificate, preserved among his papers,
informs the curious explorer, that,

"in the year 1774, Stephen Girard sailed as mate of a vessel
from New York to [New] Orleans, and that he continued to
sail out of the said port until May, 1776, when he arrived
in Philadelphia commander of a sloop,"

of which the said Stephen Girard was part owner.

Lucky was it for Gir