BIOGRAPHICAL 147 



in check and face the ordinary perils of the 

 sea, but from 1800 to 1825 not a vessel left 

 port but ran the datoger of piratical attack. 

 Not a vessel sailed the Spanish Main, 

 passed the Straits of Gibraltar or ventured 

 near the Malay Archipelago but must stand 

 ready to fight to save its crew and cargo. 

 The captain of that day was inclined to be 

 boastful and obtrusively patriotic, and his 

 patriotism was too often local and sub- 

 servient to his business interests. This was 

 true, however, of other professions and in 

 every section of the country. The United 

 States had not at this time been welded into 

 a nation, but was rather a loosely connected 

 league of states and districts with different 

 interests and often antagonistic feelings. 



Such a man as I have described the boy 

 had grown to be, and threading his way 

 from port to port, following his market 

 from the Cape of Good Hope to the Ori- 

 noco, he gradually acquired wealth and 

 became the owner of a small fleet of vessels. 

 He had now attained his second great 



