rom his post by day, and he soon had the cream of
the boating business of the port.

At that day parents claimed the services and the earnings of their
children till they were twenty-one. In other words, families made
common cause against the common enemy, Want. The arrangement between
this young boatman and his parents was that he should give them all
his day earnings and half his night earnings. He fulfilled his
engagement faithfully until his parents released him from it, and with
his own half of his earnings by night he bought all his clothes. He
had forty competitors in the business, who, being all grown men, could
dispose of their gains as they chose; but of all the forty, he alone
has emerged to prosperity and distinction. Why was this? There were
several reasons. He soon came to be the best boatman in the port. He
attended to his business more regularly and strictly than any other.
He had no vices. His comrades spent at night much of what they earned
by day, and when the winter suspended their business, instead of
living on the last summer's savings, they were obliged to lay up debts
for the next summer's gains to discharge. In those three years of
willing servitude to his parents, Cornelius Vanderbilt added to the
family's common stock of wealth, and gained for himself three
things,--a perfect knowledge of his business, habits of industry and
self-control, and the best boat in the harbor.

The war of 1812 suspended the commerce of the port, but gave a great
impulse to boating. There were men-of-war in the harbor and garrisons
in the forts, which gave to the boatmen of Whitehall and Staten Island
plenty of business, of which Cornelius Vanderbilt had his usual share.
In September, 1813, during a tremendous gale, a British fleet
attempted to run past Fort Richmond. After the repulse, the commander
of the fort, expecting a renewal of the attempt, was anxious to get
the news to the city, so as to secure a reinforcement early the next
day. Every one agreed that, if the thing could be done, there was but
one man who could do it; and, accordingly, young Vanderbilt was sent
for.

"Can you take a party up to the city in this gale?"

"Yes," was the reply; "but I shall have to carry them part of the way
under water."

When he made fast to Coffee-House slip, an hour or two after, every
man in the boat was drenched to the skin. But there they were, and the
fort was reinforced the next morning.

About this time, the y