ECONOMIC SOCIAL 121 



just apprehended four seamen whom I 

 found on an American brig, where they 

 had engaged at seventeen dollars a month." 

 The seamen on the United States frigate 

 "Essex" were paid seventeen dollars a 

 month, besides prize money. 1 Mr. Lloyd 

 of Massachusetts, in a speech before the 

 Senate, Feb. 28, 1812, gives the pay of 

 American seamen as seventy-five cents a 

 day, or $22.50 a month. 



Fishermen at this period are said to have 

 averaged seventeen dollars a month, 2 car- 

 penters a dollar a day and common laborers 

 eighty-two cents a day. 3 



The food furnished the sailors on an 

 American ship in 1800 was good, measured 

 by the standard of the times. Beef, pork 

 and fish, salted of course, beans, peas, corn 



1 Extract from a letter to Capt. Treble of the "Essex," 

 from the Secretary of the Navy, Nov. 15, 1799: "Able 

 seamen you will allow seventeen dollars, ordinary seamen 

 and boys five to fourteen dollars a month." 



2 History of Cohasset, p. 397. 



3 Wright, Industrial Evolution of the United States, 

 p. 216. 



