The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Old Merchant Marine, by Ralph D. Paine

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Title: The Old Merchant Marine
A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in
the Chronicles Of America Series

Author: Ralph D. Paine

Editor: Allen Johnson

Posting Date: February 12, 2009 [EBook #3099]
Release Date: February, 2002

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD MERCHANT MARINE ***

Produced by The James J. Kelly Library of St. Gregory's
University, Alev Akman, Dianne Bean, and Carrie Lorenz

THE OLD MERCHANT MARINE,

A CHRONICLE OF AMERICAN SHIPS AND SAILORS

By Ralph D. Paine

CONTENTS

I. COLONIAL ADVENTURERS IN LITTLE SHIPS
II. THE PRIVATEERS OF '76
III. OUT CUTLASES AND BOARD!
IV. THE FAMOUS DAYS OF SALEM PORT
V. YANKEE VIKINGS AND NEW TRADE ROUTES
VI. "FREE TRADE AND SAILORS' RIGHTS!"
VII. THE BRILLIANT ERA OF 1812
VIII. THE PACKET SHIPS OF THE "ROARING FORTIES"
IX. THE STATELY CLIPPER AND HER GLORY
X. BOUND COASTWISE

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

THE OLD MERCHANT MARINE

CHAPTER I. COLONIAL ADVENTURERS IN LITTLE SHIPS

The story of American ships and sailors is an epic of blue water which
seems singularly remote, almost unreal, to the later generations. A
people with a native genius for seafaring won and held a brilliant
supremacy through two centuries and then forsook this heritage of
theirs. The period of achievement was no more extraordinary than was its
swift declension. A maritime race whose topsails flecked every ocean,
whose captains courageous from father to son had fought with pike and
cannonade to defend the freedom of the seas, turned inland to seek a
different destiny and took no more thought for the tall ships and rich
cargoes which had earned so much renown for its flag.

Vanished fleets and brave memories--a chronicle of America which had
written its closing chapters before the Civil War! There will be other
Yankee merchantmen in times to come, but never days like those when
skippers sailed on seas uncharted in quest of ports mysterious and
unknown.

The Pilg