Naval War of 1812 59 



The wonderful effectiveness of our seamen at the 

 date of which I am writing as well as long subse 

 quently to it was largely due to the curious condi 

 tion of things in Europe. For thirty years all the 

 European nations had been in a state of continuous 

 and very complicated warfare, during the course of 

 which each nation in turn fought almost every other, 

 England being usually at loggerheads with all. One 

 effect of this was to force an enormous proportion 

 of the carrying trade of the world into American 

 bottoms. The old Massachusetts town of Salem 

 was then one of the main depots of the East India 

 trade; the Baltimore clippers carried goods into the 

 French and German ports with small regard to the 

 blockade; New Bedford and Sag Harbor fitted out 

 whalers for the Arctic seas as well as for the South 

 Pacific ; the rich merchants of Philadelphia and New 

 York sent their ships to all parts of the world; 

 and every small port had some craft in the coasting 

 trade. On the New England seaboard but few of 

 the boys would reach manhood without having made 

 at least one voyage to the Newfoundland Banks 

 after codfish; and in the whaling towns of Long 

 Island it used to be an old saying that no man could 

 marry till he struck his whale. The wealthy mer 

 chants of the large cities would often send their 

 sons on a voyage or two before they let them enter 

 their counting-houses. Thus it came about that a 

 large portion of our population was engaged in sea 

 faring pursuits of a nature strongly tending to de 

 velop a resolute and hardy character in the men 



