BIOGRAPHICAL 139 



fortune. From the testimony of those who 

 knew him and the record in his "Diary," 

 these misfortunes do not seem to have been 

 the result of personal mismanagement or 

 neglect, but rather of what is called bad 

 luck. 



Of his boyish life we know nothing be- 

 yond the few lines in his "Diary" which 

 tell of his education, but we do know that 

 in his burning love of the sea he was but 

 typical of thousands of other New England 

 boys of that day, and it is not difficult even 

 now to reconstruct the path which led from 

 cabin boy to merchant and to show why, 

 to use his own quaint language, "The sea- 

 faring life was their constant wish to fol- 

 low." 



How could it be otherwise ? The call of 

 the sea to every New England boy's heart 

 along that rocky coast was at once alluring 

 and imperative. The boy could remember 

 how, when a little child, his mother held 

 the big conch shell from the mantelpiece 

 to his ear that he might hear the roar of the 



