158 LITERARY PILGRIMAGES 



Joseph Peabody was another Salem sailor whose 

 fame was to outlast the Revolution and grow 

 greater in the succeeding days of hard-won peace. 

 In those following days of peaceful, or at least 

 semi-peaceful trading adventure, Peabody owned, 

 first and last, 83 ships which he freighted himself. 

 In his time he shipped 7000 seamen and pro- 

 moted 45 men from cabin boys to captains. In 

 Salem ships these cabin-boy captains, often strip- 

 lings of nineteen or twenty, sailed the seven seas, 

 opened new ports to commerce, conquering the 

 prejudice of potentates, matched their wits and 

 wisdom against those of skilled merchants of the 

 Orient and brought back princely profit to the ship 

 owners of Salem and in part to themselves, for 

 often captain and crew alike shared in the profits 

 they helped to make. In those days the Chinese 

 called the Yankees " the new people," for they first 

 heard of them when Salem ships visited their ports, 

 and the list of new lands first visited by American 

 ships from Salem is a long one. 



It was in November, 1785, that the Grand Turk, 

 belonging to Elias Derby and commanded by 

 Ebenezer West, cleared for Canton, China, the 



