THE EBBING OF THE TIDE
When the Embargo of 1807 was proclaimed as a counter-blow to England’s
“unofficial war on American commerce and her wholesale impressment of
American seamen,” the house-flags of Salem merchants flew over one
hundred and fifty-two vessels engaged in foreign trade. The Embargo
fell with blighting effects upon this imposing fleet and the allied
activities interwoven throughout the life and business of the town,
and the square-riggers lay empty and idle at the wharves. In 1808 the
foreign commerce of the United States decreased from $246,000,000 to
$79,000,000, and a British visitor, writing of New York, described what
might have been seen in Salem:
“The port indeed was full of ships, but they were dismantled and laid
up; their decks were cleared, their hatches fastened down, and scarcely
a sailor was to be found on board. Not a box, bale, cask, barrel, or
package was to be seen upon the wharves. Many of the counting houses
were shut up or advertised to be let, and the few solitary merchants,
clerks and porters, and laborers that were to be seen, were walking
about with their hands in their pockets. The coffee houses were almost
empty; the streets near the waterside were almost deserted; the grass
had begun to grow upon the wharves.”
The Embargo was removed in the spring of 1809 and Yankee ships hastened
to spread their white wings on every sea. Salem merchants loaded their
vessels with merchandise and dispatched them to skim the cream of the
European market. It was out of the frying-pan into the fire, however,
for Napoleon had set a wicked trap for these argosies and so ordered it
that all American shipping found in the ports of France, Spain, Italy,
Denmark, Prussia and Norway was confiscated and plundered under flimsy
pretext of violations of paper blockades, and what not, of which these
unsuspecting American shipmasters were wholly unaware. Thiers states
that Napoleon wrote to the Prussian Government:
“Let the American ships enter your ports. Seize them afterwards. You
shall deliver the cargoes to me, and I will take them in part payment
of the Prussian war debt.”
John Quincy Adams declared that fifty American vessels were thus taken
in Norway and Denmark. In 1809-10, fifty-one of our ships were seized
in the ports of France, forty-four in the ports of Spain, twenty-eight
in Naples, and eleven in Holland, with a total loss to helpless
American owners of at least ten million dollars. Felt’s Annals of
Salem states that “on the 19th of August (1809), the ship _Francis_,
Capt. William Haskell, arrives. She was purchased of the Neapolitan
government by our consul there, to bring home the crews of American
vessels confiscated by their order. Two hundred and fourteen persons
came in her, many of whom belonged to this town. Their treatment is
said to have been very cruel. The amount of Salem vessels and their
cargoes condemned at Naples was 783,000 dollars.”
The stout-hearted merchants of Salem rallied bravely and when the
War of 1812 began, they owned one hundred and twenty-six ships,
fifty-eight of them East Indiamen. The war played havoc with this
fleet, notwithstanding the activity of Salem privateers, and in 1815,
there were left only fifty-seven of these ships in foreign commerce, a
loss of a hundred sail in seven years. The tide had begun to ebb, the
golden age was waning, and yet in 1816 the Salem Custom House cleared
forty-two square-riggers for the East Indies and other ports of the
Orient. But the pioneering, pathfinding era was almost over, except for
ventures to the South Seas, Madagascar, and some of the ports of Africa
and South America. The trade with the Orient in which Salem ships had
blazed the way was now shared with the ships of other American ports.
The richest decade in this picturesque and adventurous traffic with the
coasts and islands of strange, far-distant climes had been from 1800
to 1810, during which the duties paid on foreign cargoes amounted to
$7,272,633, and the entries numbered 1,758, or an average of almost
three ships a day signalling their homecoming from beyond seas.
During the years from 1820 to 1840 Salem continued to hold fast to her
foreign trade, although overshadowed by Boston, and the old warehouses
on the wharves were filled with the products of Zanzibar, Sumatra,
Calcutta, Manila, Leghorn, the Rio Grande, Cayenne, Siam, Ceylon, and
the Gold Coast. In 1850 the beginning of the end was in sight, and the
“foreign entries” from Nova Scotia far outnumbered those from all the
other ports in which the natives had once believed the map of America
to consist chiefly of a vast commercial metropolis called Salem. The
end of the history of the port, except for coastwise trade may be read
in the Custom House records, as follows:
“In 1860 the foreign entries were: from Nova Scotia 215, Java 7, Africa
25, Cayenne 10, Montevideo 2, Zanzibar 4, Surinam 2, Rio Grande 2,
Buenos Ayres 2, and one each from Mozambique, Shields, Sunderland, Port
Praya, Newcastle and Trapani.
“In 1870 the foreign entries were: from the British provinces 117,
Cayenne 3, Newcastle 2, and one each from Zanzibar, Rio Grande, Cape
Verde Islands, and Sunderland.
“In 1878 the foreign entries were: from the British Provinces 53, and
none from any other ports.”
Although in these latter days the romances of shipping had somewhat
departed, yet now and then a Salem square-rigger brought home a tale
to remind the old salts of the thrilling days of yore. There was the
_Sumatra_, for example, Captain Peter Silver, which came from Batavia
in 1842. While at sea she fell in with a bark which flew signals of
distress yet appeared to be in good order below and aloft. There was
no crew on deck, however, no living soul to be seen except a woman
who implored help with frantic gestures. Running down close, Captain
Silver made out the vessel to be the _Kilmars_ of Glasgow, and he sent
a boat aboard to pick off the lone woman. She proved to be a girl,
only eighteen years old, wife of the master of the bark, almost out of
her wits with hysteria and exhaustion. She said that the _Kilmars_ had
sailed from Batavia two months previously with a cargo of sugar for
Europe. The crew, shipped in the Dutch East Indies, were a desperate
and unruly lot of beachcombers, several of them released convicts.
A few days before the _Sumatra_ came in sight, the captain of the
Scotch bark had discovered that his crew was planning mutiny and were
about to make their attack and gain possession of the vessel after
ridding themselves of the officers. This captain was a man of the right
mettle, for he promptly picked out the ringleader, charged him with
the conspiracy, and after a brisk encounter shot him with a pistol,
and removed him from the scene for the time. The mates were suspected
of disaffection and the captain succeeded in locking them in the after
cabin, after which he sailed into his crew, drove all hands below and
fastened the hatches over them. The decks being cleared in this most
gallant fashion, the captain, with the help of two boys undertook to
navigate the bark back to Batavia.
This proved to be a bigger undertaking than he could handle, and
while passing in sight of land, the captain decided to go ashore in a
boat with the two boys and find help, the weather being calm and the
mutineers securely bottled up below. He expected to be gone no more
than a few hours, but the day passed, night came down, and his boat
was missing. The young wife was alone, distraught and helpless, and
she took her stand by the rail, determined to throw herself overboard
if the mutineers should regain the deck. Next morning she sighted the
_Sumatra_ and was saved. But while the crew of the _Sumatra_ was making
sail to resume the voyage, no more than a few minutes after the boat
had fetched the girl on board, the ruffians confined on the bark broke
out from their prison, swarmed on deck, and took possession of their
bark.
Captain Peter Silver of the _Sumatra_ was not disposed to give them
a battle, and they got the _Kilmars_ under way and steered off on a
course of their own. Upon reaching Batavia Captain Silver landed the
young wife and gave her in charge of the Dutch officials who took care
of her with sympathetic hospitality and sent her home to her kinfolk
in Scotland. Sometime later the _Kilmars_ entered the port of Angier
where the mutineers were promptly captured and tried, and the bark was
returned to her owners.
The captain of the _Kilmars_ and the two boys were picked up adrift in
the Straits of Sunda, and it was discovered that he had become insane
from overwork and anxiety which explained why he had abandoned his wife
and set off to find help on a strange coast. He was later restored to
health and it is presumed that this plucky shipmaster, his girl wife
and his bark were safely reunited after being parted from one another
under these very extraordinary circumstances.
[Illustration:
From the oil painting by Edgar Parker
Captain John Bertram]
It is a coincidence worth noting that the first commanding figure
in the maritime history of Salem, Philip English, was born in the
Isle of Jersey, and that John Bertram, the last of the race of
great shipping merchants of the port hailed from the same island. Two
centuries intervened between their careers, John Bertram living until
1882, and witnessing the passing of the foreign commerce of Salem and
the coming of the age of steam upon the high seas. As a young man he
saw an average of a hundred square-rigged ships a year come home to
Salem from the Orient, Africa, South America, Europe and the South Sea
Islands. In his latter years he saw this noble commerce dwindle and
American seamen vanish until in 1870 the bark _Glide_ from Zanzibar
recorded the last entry in the Salem Custom House of a vessel from
beyond the Cape of Good Hope, and, in 1877, the Schooner _Mattie F._
crept in from South America as the last vessel to fetch home a cargo
from anywhere overseas. The Manila trade had become a memory in 1858,
the farewell voyage to Sumatra was made in 1860. Until the end of
the century Salem shipowners were interested in the trade with the
Philippines and other distant ports, but their vessels departed from
and came back to Boston.[49] The Salem firm of Silsbee, Pickman and
Allen built a fleet of fast and noble ships for the hemp trade, among
them the _Sooloo_, _Panay_ and _Mindoro_, but they never knew their own
port, and in 1896 the last of this fleet, the _Mindoro_, was towed to
Derby Wharf in Salem harbor to rot in idleness until she was cut down
to a coal barge.
John Bertram deserved to be classed with the older generation of Elias
Hasket Derby and Joseph Peabody, because he possessed the same high
qualities of foresight, daring and sagacity, a type of the militant
leader of commerce on the firing line of civilization. Like theirs,
his was a splendid American spirit which created, builded, and won its
rewards by virtue of native ability inspired and impelled by the genius
of its time and place. He was in a privateer in the War of 1812, and
lived to see his country’s flag almost vanish from blue water, its
superb merchant marine dwindle to almost nothing, but while it was in
its glory he played well his part in carrying the stars and stripes,
over his own ships, wherever the mariners of other nations went to seek
commerce. This John Bertram came to Salem in his boyhood and in 1813
was sailing out of Boston as a cabin boy in the schooner _Monkey_. A
little later shipping out of Charleston in a privateer, he was taken
prisoner and confined in British prison ships at Bermuda and Barbadoes.
Having learned to speak French in his early years on the Isle of Jersey
he persuaded his captors that he was a French subject and was released
but was again captured and carried off to England while homeward bound
to Salem. His was the usual story of lads with brains and ambition in
that era, at first a sailor and shipmaster, then an owner of vessels
and a merchant on shore.
John Bertram served a long apprenticeship before he forsook the
quarterdeck. In 1824 he sailed for St. Helena in the chartered schooner
_General Brewer_, and when a few days at sea overhauled the Salem brig
_Elizabeth_, Captain Story, also headed for St. Helena. Commerce was
a picturesque speculation then, and each of these skippers was eager
to make port first with his cargo and snatch the market away from his
rival.
The weather was calm, the wind was light, and Captain Bertram invited
Captain Story to come on board and have a cup of tea, or something
stronger. The skippers twain sat on deck and eyed each other while they
yarned, each assuring the other that he was bound to Pernambuco. St.
Helena? Nonsense! Captain Story was rowed back to his brig, the two
vessels made sail and jogged on their course. When nightfall came,
however, John Bertram threw his whole deck load of lumber overboard in
order to lighten his schooner and put her in her best trim for sailing,
cracked on all the canvas he could carry, and let her drive for St.
Helena as if the devil were after him. He beat the _Elizabeth_ to port
so handsomely that his cargo had been sold at fancy prices and he was
standing out of the harbor, homeward bound when the brig came creeping
in with a very long-faced Captain Story striding her poop.
Soon after this Captain Bertram determined to go after a share of the
South American trade, and after a voyage to the Cape of Good Hope in
the _Velocity_, he carried her to the Rio Grande and the Coast of
Patagonia to trade in hides. He went ashore, leaving Captain W. B.
Smith to pick up hides during short coastwise voyages, and finding
the adventures prosperous, bought a Salem brig at Pernambuco and kept
both vessels busy. For three years Captain Bertram lived on the coast
of Patagonia directing the operations of his little fleet and taking
this exile as a routine part of the education of an American shipping
merchant.
After his return to Salem his activities were shifted to Zanzibar
where the American flag was almost unknown. Madagascar had been opened
to American trade in 1821 by the Salem brig _Beulah_ on her way home
from Mocha. Zanzibar was a small settlement with no foreign trade,
gum-copal, the principal staple product, being carried to India in the
Sultan’s vessels. In 1826 the Salem brig _Ann_ called at Zanzibar and
showed the natives the first American flag they had ever seen, but no
attempt was made to establish commerce with the port until John Bertram
set sail in the _Black Warrior_ in 1830. He scented a pioneering voyage
with gum-copal as the prize, an import in great demand by makers of
varnish and up to that time imported by way of India at great cost.
When the _Black Warrior_ arrived at Zanzibar the Sultan was on the
point of dispatching a vessel loaded with the coveted gum-copal to
India, but this typical Salem navigator would not let such a chance
slip through his fingers. He boarded the Sultan and made him an offer
in shining silver dollars for the cargo, and the dazzled potentate set
his slaves at work to transfer the cargo to the hold of the _Black
Warrior_.
Thence John Bertram sailed home, and sold his gum-copal for a handsome
profit. Other ships followed in his wake and for many years the
Zanzibar trade in gum-copal was chiefly carried on in ships out of
Salem which controlled the supply of this commodity as it had won and
held the pepper trade with Sumatra and the coffee trade with Mocha
during an earlier generation.
When the news of the California gold discoveries swept the East like
wildfire in 1848, John Bertram was one of the first shipowners to grasp
the possibilities of the trade around Cape Horn to San Francisco.
Before the end of 1848 he had sent out a ship to carry the advance
guards of the argonauts. This bark _Eliza_ cleared from Derby Wharf
in December with assorted cargo and passengers, and was cheered by
an excited crowd which swarmed among the East India warehouses and
listened to the departing gold-seekers sing in lusty chorus the
“California Song” which later became the favorite ditty of many a
ship’s company bound round the Horn. It ran to the tune of “Oh!
Susannah” and carried such sentiments as these:
“I come from Salem City
With my wash-bowl on my knee;
I’m going to California
The gold dust for to see.
It rained all day the day I left,
The weather it was dry;
The sun so hot I froze to death,
Oh, brother, don’t you cry.
CHORUS
Oh, California;
That’s the land for me,
I’m going to California
With my wash-bowl on my knee.[50]
For this roaring California trade John Bertram and his partners built
a famous American clipper, the _John Bertram_, of eleven hundred tons,
at East Boston. The remarkable feature of this undertaking was that the
ship was launched sixty days after the laying of her keel and _ninety
days_ from the time the workmen first laid tools to the timbers she was
sailing out of Boston harbor with a full cargo, bound to San Francisco.
The _John Bertram_ was a staunch, able, and splendidly built ship,
notwithstanding this feat of record-breaking construction. Thirty years
after her maiden voyage she was still afloat in the deep-water trade,
although under a foreign flag, a fine memorial of the skill and honesty
of New England shipbuilders.
After winning a handsome fortune in his shipping enterprises John
Bertram had foresight and wisdom to perceive that American ships
in foreign trade were doomed to make a losing fight. Their day was
past. He turned his energies into other and more profitable channels,
and keeping pace with the march of the times, engaged in railroad
development and manufacturing enterprises, a shipping merchant of the
old school who adapted himself to new conditions with a large measure
of success. Much of his fortune he gave to benefit his town of Salem
in which his extensive philanthropies keep his memory green.
In 1869, Robert S. Rantoul of Salem, while writing of the town’s
maritime history made this brave attempt to convince himself that her
glory had not yet departed:
“While our packets ply to New York and our steam tug puffs and screams
about the harbor; while marine railways are busy and shipyards launch
bigger merchantmen than ever; while coal comes in upwards of four
hundred colliers yearly, and our boarding officers report more than
fifteen hundred arrivals,[51] while our fishing fleets go forth,
and our whalers still cruise the waters of the Indian Ocean and the
North Pacific, while we turn over $100,000 to $125,000 per year to
the Federal Treasury from import duties and enter a large part of the
dates, gum, spices, ivory, ebony and sheepskins brought into this
country, it is no time yet to despair of this most ancient seaport of
the United States of America.”
This was in a way, a swan-song for the death of Salem romance. The
one steam tug which “screamed about the harbor,” was the forerunner
of a host of her kind which should trouble the landlocked harbor that
once swarmed with privateers and East Indiamen. The coal barge and
the coasting schooner were henceforth to huddle in sight of crumbling
Derby Wharf, and the fluttering drone of the spindles in the cotton
mill to be heard along the waterfront where the decks of the stately
square-riggers had echoed to the roaring chanties of “Whiskey Johnny,”
“Blow the Man Down,” and “We’re Off for the Rio Grande.”
Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote an epitaph of Salem as a deep-water seaport,
and thus it appeared to him, the greatest of its children, as he viewed
it sixty years ago:
“In my native town of Salem, at the head of what, half a century ago,
in the days of old King Derby, was a bustling wharf, but which is
now burdened with decayed wooden warehouses, and exhibits few or no
symptoms of commercial life; except, perhaps, a bark or brig, half way
down its melancholy length, discharging hides; or, nearer at hand, a
Nova Scotia schooner pitching out her cargo of firewood—at the head,
I say, of this dilapidated wharf, which the tide often overflows, and
along which, at the base and in the rear of the row of buildings,
the track of many languid years is seen in a border of unthrifty
grass—here, with a view from its front windows adown the not very
enlivening prospect, and thence across the harbor, stands a spacious
edifice of brick....
“The pavement round about the above-described edifice—which we may as
well name at once as the Custom House of the port—has grass enough
growing in its chinks to show that it has not, of late days, been worn
by any multitudinous resort of business. In some months of the year,
however, there often chances a forenoon when affairs move onward with
a livelier tread. Such occasions might remind the elderly citizen
of that period before the last war with England, when Salem was a
port by itself; not scorned, as she is now, by her own merchants and
shipowners, who permit her wharves to crumble to ruin, while their
ventures go to swell, needlessly and imperceptibly, the mighty flood
of commerce at New York or Boston. On some such morning, when three
or four vessels happen to have arrived at once—usually from Africa or
South America—or to be on the verge of their departure thitherward,
there is a sound of frequent feet, passing briskly up and down the
granite steps. Here before his own wife has greeted him, you may greet
the sea-flushed shipmaster, just in port, with his vessel’s papers
under his arm in a tarnished tin box. Here, too, comes his owner,
cheerful or somber, gracious or in the sulks, accordingly as his scheme
of the now accomplished voyage has been realized in merchandise that
will readily be turned into gold, or has buried him under a bulk of
commodities such as nobody will care to rid him of....”
It is unmanly to mourn over old, dead days as better than the present
times, to say that men were stronger, simpler, braver in the beginning
of this Republic. Every age or generation, however, hammers out in
the stress of its day’s work some refined metal of experience, some
peculiarly significant heritage to help posterity in its struggle to
perpetuate the things most worth while. It was not the rich freightage
of silks, spices, ivory and tea which the ships of Salem fetched home,
nor the fortunes which built the stately mansions of the elm-shaded
streets, that made this race of seamen worthy of a page in the history
of their country’s rise to greatness. They did their duty, daringly and
cheerfully, in peace and in war. They let their deeds speak for them,
and they bore themselves as “gentlemen unafraid,” in adversity and
with manly modesty in prosperity. They believed in their country and
they fought for her rights, without swashbuckling or empty words. They
helped one another, and their community worked hand in hand with them,
on honor, to insure the safety of their perilous ventures. The men who
wove the duck, the sailmakers who fashioned it to bend to the yards,
the blacksmith, the rigger, the carpenter, and the instrument-maker did
honest work, all co-operating to build and fit the ship their neighbor
was to command so that she might weather the hardest blow and do credit
to those who made and sailed her.
[Illustration:
From the oil painting by Edgar Parker
Captain John Bertram]
[Illustration: Ship _Sooloo_, Capt. Charles H. Allen, Jr., bound for
San Francisco, June 1, 1861]
Every shipmaster had as good a chance as any other to win a fortune.
Independence, self-reliance, initiative and ambition were fostered. It
was clean-handed competition, aggressive, but with a fair chance for
all. Whether it was the _Atlantic_ daring to show American colors to
the East India Company in Calcutta in 1788, or the _Endeavor_, with
Captain David Elwell on her quarterdeck making the first passage
of an American ship through the Straits of Magellan in 1824, or the
_Margaret_ at anchor in Nagasaki harbor half a century before another
American vessel visited a port of Japan, these adventurers of commerce
were red-blooded frontiersmen of blue water, as truly and thoroughly
American in spirit and ambition as the strong men who pushed into the
western wilderness to carve out new empire for their countrymen.
Judged by the standards of this age, these seamen had their faults.
They saw no great wrong in taking cargoes of New England rum to poison
the black tribes of Africa, and the schooner _Sally and Polly_ of Salem
was winging it to Senegal as early as 1789. Rum, gunpowder and tobacco
outbound, hides, palm oil, gold dust and ivory homeward, were staples
of a busy commerce until late into the last century. But the pioneering
trade to the Orient, which was the glory of the port, was free from the
stain of debasing the natives for gain.
Salem is proud of its past, but mightily interested in its present.
Its population is four times as great as when it was the foremost
foreign seaport of the United States and its activities have veered
into manufacturing channels. But as has happened to many other New
England cities of the purest American pedigree, a flood of immigration
from Europe and Canada has swept into Salem to swarm in its mills and
factories. Along the harbor front the fine old square mansions from
which the lords of the shipping gazed down at their teeming wharves are
tenanted by toilers of many alien nations. But the stately, pillared
Custom House, alas, no more than a memorial of vanished greatness,
stands at the head of Derby Wharf to remind the passer-by, not only of
its immortal surveyor, Nathaniel Hawthorne, but also of an age of which
the civic seal of Salem bears witness in its motto, “_Divitis Indiae
usque ad ultimum sinum_” (To the farthest port of the rich East.)
FOOTNOTES:
[49] “July 1, 1833. Nearly half our commercial capital is employed in
other ports. During the past year there sailed from Salem 14 ships,
10 of them for India, 2 on whaling voyages to the Pacific; 5 barks, 4
of which for India; 94 brigs, 14 of them for India; and 23 schooners.
Fourteen ships, 6 barks, 27 brigs and 6 schooners belonging to this
place sailed from other ports on foreign voyages.” (Felt’s Annals of
Salem.)
[50] Captain John H. Eagleston took the brigantine _Mary and Ellen_
out to California two months ahead of the _Eliza_, in October, 1848,
loading with a general cargo to sell to the gold-seekers. While at San
Francisco in June, 1849, he met the _Eliza_, and later wrote, in an
account of the voyage:
“On board the _Eliza_ there were quite a number of passengers. Several
of these remaining in San Francisco, pitched their tent in Happy
Valley where Mr. Jonathan Nichols, stored as he was with fun and
song, assisted by his social and free-hearted companions, made their
quarters at all times inviting and pleasant. I was often with them, and
under the beautiful evening sky, the echoes of good singing pleased
the squatters that composed the little beehive villages which dotted
the valley, especially ‘The Washbowl on my Knee,’ which was the usual
wind-up.”
[51] Coastwise schooners and vessels from the Canadian provinces.
APPENDIX
APPENDIX
LISTS OF THE PRIVATE ARMED SHIPS OF SALEM IN THE REVOLUTION AND THE WAR
OF 1812
The following list of the armed ships of Salem from 1776 to 1783
includes both privateers and letters-of-marque. As defined in
international law “letters-of-marque” as issued by a Government are
privateering commissions, but in practice a distinction was made
between the two classes of ships. A privateer cruised in pursuit of
the enemy’s commerce and went to sea for no other purpose, while a
letter-of-marque vessel carried a cargo to a destined port or ports,
taking prizes if they came in her way and defending herself against the
enemy as a regularly commissioned private ship of war under heavy bonds
to her government to obey the rules of warfare.
_The Naval Records of the Revolution_, as compiled and published by the
Library of Congress, contains a list of the letters-of-marque issued
by the Government, and includes no fewer than one hundred and ninety
of these commissions granted to Salem shipowners, and commanders,
designating them all as “private armed ships of war.” The most accurate
catalogues of this kind that were compiled many years ago by local
historians and shipmasters agree upon one hundred and fifty-eight
as the total number of vessels of all kinds which actually engaged
in privateering out of the port of Salem during the Revolution. The
Government records show, however, that this reckoning falls far short
of the total number of craft commissioned by means of letters-of-marque
to prey upon England’s commerce as private ships of war. Even these
Government records are not complete, however, the names of several
well-known privateers being absent from the list, while on the other
hand the name of one vessel may be recorded two, three, or four times,
a new commission being granted and a new bond demanded when the ship,
schooner, or brig changed commanders or owners. The bond required in
all cases was in the sum of $20,000.
From the _Naval Records of the Revolution_, and from all lists made
and preserved in Salem archives and from other sources the following
catalogue has been compiled, as the most nearly complete record of
the private armed ships of Salem during the Revolution that has been
published:
_Name_ _Class_ _Commander_ _Guns_ _Men_
_Active_ brigantine {William Ross 14 60
{Johnson Briggs
_Adventure_ brig {J. Gardner 4 10
{Jonathan Tucker
_America_ schooner Geo. Williams 8 80
_Atalanta_ brig Cornelius Thompson 10 25
_American Hero_ ship William Fairfield 16 25
_Astrea_ ship John Derby 20 50
_Aurora_ brigantine Geo. Williams, Jr. 6 12
_Aurora_ brig —— Caldwell 10 75
_Black Prince_ ship Nathaniel West 18 160
_Banter_ sloop Henry White 8 50
_Belisaurus_ ship
_Bloodhound_ brig 14 55
_Brutus_ ship John Leach 18 100
_Bunker Hill_ ship John Turner 20 110
_Blackbird_ schooner William Groves 8 20
_Black Snake_ sloop William Carelton 12 60
_Bloom_ schooner Silas Smith 6 25
_Beaver_ schooner 10 swivels
_Bowdoin_ sloop 8
_Buckaneer_ ship Jeremiah Hacker 18 150
_Centipede_ schooner 6
_Charming Polly_ brig D. Bigelow
_Captain_ brigantine John Donaldson 10 45
{Johnson Briggs
_Cato_ brig {James Pickman 16 60
{Jesse Fearson
_Chace_ brigantine Cornelius Thompson 10 35
_Concord_ brig Ephraim Emerton
_Cutter_ schooner {Silas Smith 8 20
{Joseph Strout
_Cutter_ brigantine Geo. Ashby, Jr 10 45
_Cicero_ ship Hugh Hill 20 100
_Commerce_ sloop John Baptist Millet 10 25
_Commerce_ brigantine Ephraim Emerton 6 12
_Columbia_ schooner J. Greeley 12 30
_Comet_ brigantine Samuel Waters 6 15
_Comet_ schooner Richard Eldredge 9 29
_Creature Terrible_ brig Robert Richardson 14 43
_Catchall_ schooner Moses Chase 6 15
_Civil Usage_ brig {Greag Powers 14 45
{Peter Martin
_Congress_ ship David Ropes 20 130
_Cyrus_ ship Jonathan Mason, Jr 10 20
_Dispatch_ ship John Felt 10 60
{David Ropes
{William Gray
_Dolphin_ schooner {Greag Powers 8 30
{David Felt, Jr.
{Frank Benson
_Dart_ schooner Zenas Cook 6 22
_Delight_ schooner J. Temple 4 40
_Don Galvez_ brig Silas Jones 6 16
_Disdain_ ship William Patterson 20 100
_Diana_ brigantine Robert Barker 6 16
_Defense_ brigantine John Barr 10 16
_Eagle_ brig John Leach 20 110
_Exchange_ ship {Simon Forrester 20 60
{John Collins
_Experiment_ brigantine Samuel Ingersoll 6 14
_Essex_ ship John Cathcart 20 150
_Elizabeth_ brig {Clifford Byrne 4 10
{Ichabod Clarke
_Exchange_ schooner Henry Tibbetts 2 15
_Franklin_ ship Silas Deval 18 25
_Fame_ brig Samuel Hobbs 16 50
_Freedom_ brig Benjamin Ober 7 15
_Fortune_ brig Benjamin Ives 14 60
_Favourite_ brigantine William Patterson 11 50
_Fanny_ brigantine Samuel Tucker 4 12
_Felicity_ brig 8 20
_Flying Fish_ brigantine {John Gavett
{Anthony Divers
_Fly_ schooner {Christopher Babbidge 6 25
{William Mallory
_Fox_ schooner {Jeremiah Lansvay 6 75
{Jonathan Neall
_Friendship_ ship Gideon Henfield 6 20
_General Putnam_ schooner S. Mascotte 8 66
_General Gates_ brig —— Skinner 8
_General Lincoln_ brig John Carnes
_General Greene_ ship Aaron Crowell 16 90
_Grand Turk_ ship {Thomas Simmons 28 140
{Joseph Pratt
_Grey Hound_ schooner {Jacob Wilds 8 35
{John Cooke
_Good Luck_ ship Jonathan Neall 8 20
_General Galvez_ ship Thomas Smith 18 40
_Griffin_ brig Gideon Henfield
_Gamecock_ schooner Richard Smith 8 30
_General
Montgomery_ brigantine Samuel Hobbs 14 60
_Harlequin_ schooner Jonathan Tucker 6 16
_Hornet_ schooner Robert Brookhouse 10 swivels
_Henry_ schooner John Baptist Millet 4 10
_Hasket & John_ brig Benjamin Crowninshield
_Hero_ brig Silas Smith 12 50
_Hynde_ brig Francis Boardman 8 16
_Hector_ ship John Carnes 18 150
_Hector_ schooner John Cartright 6 15
_Hope_ schooner Robert Wormsted 8 25
_Hyder Alley_ brigantine Francis Boardman 8 16
_Hind_ brigantine Benjamin Dunham 8 16
{Nathaniel Coit Webb 8 25
_Hazard_ sloop-schooner {Benjamin Knight
{Edward Smith, Jr.
{Hugh Helme
_Hound_ brig John Adkinson 14 50
_Harkey_ galley Phineas Smith 2 18
_Hawke_ schooner {John Barbaroux 6 15
{Jacob Wilde
_Iris_ ship Robert Rantoul 9 18
_Jack_ ship David Ropes 14 60
_Junius Brutus_ ship John Brooks 20 120
_Jason_ ship Charles Hamilton 16 70
_Julius Caesar_ ship {Thomas Benson 14 40
{Jonathan Haraden
_Junius_ ship Nathaniel West 10 25
_Juno_ brig John Felt 12 16
_Jackall_ schooner {Adam Wellman 8 45
{Thomas Holmes
_James_ ship John Clarke 11 25
_John_ ship Jonathan Ingersoll
_Jupiter_ ship William Orne 14 40
_Joseph_ brig Henry Higginson 8 15
_Kendrick_ ship Thomas Benson 18 100
{John Augusta Dunn
_Languedock_ schooner {Reuben Yoemens 4 25
{Jeremiah Hegerty
_Lexington_ brig David Smith, Jr. 10 20
{George Ashby
_Lively_ brig {John Augusta Dunn 8 35
{Nathaniel Brookhouse
_Live Oak_ sloop Samuel Tucker 6 20
_Lion_ brig {Jonathan Mason 16 50
{Benjamin Warren
_Lark_ schooner N. Tilden 10 swivels
_Lee_ schooner Daniel Waters
_Lincoln_ brig John Carnes
_Louis le Grande_ ship 18 100
_Lucy_ brig S. Clay 12 25
_Liberty_ sloop Eben Pierce 6 25
_Manete_ schooner John Daccaretta 6 10
_Marquis de
Lafayette_ ship {Ebenezer Reed 10 100
{John Buffington
_Mermaid_ brig Jonathan Tucker 14 30
_Minerva_ sloop Nehemiah Buffington 6 10
_Massachusetts_ brig {John Fisk 16 30
{Jonathan Haraden
_Mars_ ship William Woodbury 16 75
_Monmouth_ brigantine David Ingersoll 6 20
_Montgomery_ brigantine {John Carnes 8 20
{James Barr, Jr.
_Morning Star_ sloop Francis Roch 8 12
_Macaroni_ brig 14
_New Adventure_ brig Jonathan Neall 14 50
_Nancy_ schooner George Leach 6 25
{William Woodbury, Jr.
_Neptune_ ship {Hugh Smith 14 65
{Silas Smith
{Benjamin Cole
_Oliver Cromwell_ ship {Nathaniel West 16 100
{James Barr, Jr.
_Pallas_ ship Gamaliel Hodges 10 20
_Panther_ schooner Samuel Masury 8 35
_Patty_ sloop Nathan Nichols 4 16
{Simon Forrester
_Patty_ ship {John Derby 8 20
{David Smith
_Penguin_ schooner Samuel Foster 10 40
_Pickering_ ship Jonathan Haraden 16 50
_Porus_ ship Samuel Crowell 22 100
_Pilgrim_ ship Joseph Robinson 18 100
_Pompey_ schooner Silas Smith
_Putnam_ ship Nathan Brown 18 90
_Plato_ brig
_Pompey_ schooner W. Thomas 6
_Port Packet_ ship Simon Forrester 8 20
_Race Horse_ schooner Alexander Story 8 25
_Rainbow_ schooner Oliver Webb 6 25
_Rattlesnake_ ship Mark Clark 20 85
_Raven_ schooner David Needham 12 40
_Recovery_ brigantine {Samuel Ingersoll
{William Dennis
_Revenge_ schooner {Benjamin Knight 8 40
{Samuel Foster
_Revolt_ brig Henry Phelps 8 20
_Resolution_ schooner Joseph Trask 8 20
_Roebuck_ ship Gideon Henfield 14 90
{Joshua Grafton
_Romulus_ brig {Joseph Waters 14 25
{Thomas Palfrey
_Rover_ ship James Barr, Jr. 24 100
_Rover_ schooner Thomas Morgridge 10 30
_Retaliation_ brig E. Giles 10 70
_Revenge_ sloop Benjamin Dean 10
_Ranger_ schooner Thomas Simmons 10 20
_Rambler_ brig Benjamin Lovett 16 40
_Rhodes_ brig N. Buffington 20 90
_Resolution_ ship Samuel West 20 130
_Robust_ ship Jonathan Tucker 12 25
_Salem_ brig {Henry Williams 12 30
{Edward Stanley
_Salem Packet_ ship {Joseph Cooke 12 30
{John Brewer
_Satisfaction_ schooner Edward Stanley 6 30
_Speedwell_ brigantine John Murphy 10 50
_Scourge_ brigantine —— Parker 20 80
_Sharke_ sloop 10 swivels
_Spanish Packet_ ship Thomas Dalling 10 20
_Sturdy Beggar_ brig {Daniel Hathorne 8 60
{Edward Rowland
_Shaker_ brig —— Stacey 6 40
_Spitfire_ schooner William Perkins 11 20
_Spy_ schooner Thomas Philips 8 20
_Surprize_ schooner {Nathaniel Perkins 8 35
{Germain Langevain
_Surprize_ brig Benjamin Cole 14 70
_Swift_ brig Israel Johnson 14 70
_Scorpion_ schooner Israel Thorndike 16 60
_Swett_ schooner Joseph Fearson 12
_Spring Bird_ schooner John Patten 4 25
_Saucy Jack_ schooner
_Tartar_ schooner Thomas Dexter 10 18
_Thomas_ ship Francis Boardman 10 20
_Thrasher_ schooner Benjamin Cole 8 30
_Titus_ sloop John Buchmore 4 11
_Two Brothers_ ship {William Gray 25
{Daniel Sanders
_Tyger_ brig Samuel Crowell 14 70
_Thorn_ ship Samuel Tucker
_Trenton_ ship Joseph Nati 12
_True American_ schooner Israel Thorndike 6 50
{John Blackler
_Union_ schooner {Jonathan Gardner, 3d. 8 25
{Isaac Smith
_Union_ sloop John Fearson 6 30
_Venus_ ship Thomas Nicholson 10 20
_Viper_ ship {Jonathan Neall 14 65
{Benjamin Hilton
_Washington_ brig Edmond Lewis 7 15
_Willing Maid_ schooner John Savage 4 25
_Wild Cat_ brig Daniel Ropes 14 75
_Warren_ schooner I. Thorndike 6 50
_William_ schooner Joseph Fearson 8 25
PRIVATE ARMED SHIPS OF SALEM IN THE WAR OF 1812
_Name_ _Class_ _Commander_ _Guns_ _Men_
_Active_ schooner Benjamin Patterson 12 25
_Alexander_ ship T. Williams, Jr. 18 140
_Alfred_ ship Benjamin Crowninshield 16 110
{Joseph Ropes
_America_ ship {John Kehoe 20 150
{Jas. W. Chever
_Black Vomit_ boat John Upton muskets 16
_Buckskin_ schooner I. Bray 5 50
_Cadet_ schooner William Calley 2 40
_Castigator_ launch {Stephen G. Clarke 6 20
{Spencer Hall
{John Upton
_Cossack_ schooner {Wm. Davis 1 45
{Abner Poland
_Dart_ schooner {T. Symonds 2 40
{John Green
_Diomede_ schooner Jacob Crowninshield 3 100
_Dolphin_ schooner Jacob Endicott 1 70
_Enterprize_ schooner John R. Morgan 4 100
_Fair Trader_ schooner John R. Morgan 1 35
{Abner Poland
_Fame_ schooner {John Upton 2 30
{—— Webb
_Frolic_ schooner Nathan Green 1 60
{J. B. H. Ordione
_Galliniper_ schooner {Timothy Wellman 1 30
{Andrew Tucker
_General Putnam_ schooner John Evans 2 60
_General Stark_ schooner John Evans 3 50
_Grand Turk_ brig {Holten J. Breed 18 150
{Nathan Green
_Growler_ schooner Samuel B. Graves 105
_Helen_ schooner {Nathaniel Lindsay 4 70
{John Upton
_Halkar_ boat {John Kehoe muskets 16
{Samuel Lamson
_Jefferson_ sloop {S. Giles Downie 1 20
{T. Wellman, Jr.
_John_ ship {James Fairfield
{Benjamin Crowninshield
_John & George_ schooner John Sinclair, Jr. 1 50
_Lizard_ schooner Samuel Loring 2 30
_Montgomery_ brig {Holten J. Breed 10 100
{Ben. Upton
_Onion_ boat {John Upton muskets 20
{Jonathan Blythe
_Owl_ boat William Duncan muskets 14
_Phoenix_ schooner Stephenson Richards 1 25
_Polly_ sloop Samuel C. Hardy 1 60
_Recovery_ schooner Joseph Peele 2 20
_Regulator_ schooner James Mansfield 50
_Revenge_ schooner John Sinclair, Jr. 1 50
_Scorpion_ sloop Stephenson Richards 1 20
_Swift_ schooner Harney Choate 1 25
_Swiftsure_ launch {Stephen Clarke 1 20
{Charles Berry
_Terrible_ boat John Green muskets 10
_Viper_ schooner Joseph Preston 1 20
_Wasp_ sloop Ernest A. Erwin 2 35
RECAPITULATION
REVOLUTIONARY WAR
Ships 56
Brigs and Brigantines 69
Sloops 14
Schooners 56
Galley 1
———
196
Total number of guns 1,965
Total number of men 7,631
Total number of vessels 196
WAR OF 1812
Ships 4
Brigs and Brigantines 2
Sloops 4
Schooners 21
——
31
Total number of guns 147
Total number of men 2,081
Total number of vessels 31
INDEX
INDEX
_Active_, bark, Captain Richardson, diverting tale of a green
seaman, 219;
first American trader in the Fijis, 406.
Adams, President John, address to Congress urging protection of
maritime
commerce, 229.
_Adventure_, brig, founders at sea, marvelous escape of her captain,
33.
Adventures, list of, sent in Salem ships to the Orient, 188-89.
Atheneum, Salem, founded with library captured by privateer, 302.
_America_, privateer in War of 1812;
her trading voyages to the Red Sea, 355;
fighting equipment and complement, 357;
first cruise in command of Captain Joseph Ropes, 357;
second cruise under Captain James Kehew, 358;
log of cruises in command of Captain James Chever, 359-62;
fight with packet _Princess Elizabeth_, 364.
Archer, Captain Henry, wreck of his ship _Glide_ in Fijis, 408.
Ashton, Philip, journal of captivity among pirates, 44-57.
_Astrea_, first American ship to visit Manila, 304.
_Atlantic_, first ship to show American colors to East India
Company, 494.
Bancroft, Hubert Howe, version of Captain Richard Cleveland’s sea
fight
with Spanish at San Diego, 349.
Barbary Pirates, attacks on Salem commerce and seamen held in bondage
(1661), 22;
appeal posted in Salem for funds to ransom captives from, 226.
Barney, Lieutenant Joshua, escape from Mill Prison, 131-33.
Barr, James, commanding privateer _Rover_, 65.
Battis, John, narrative of the piracy of the brig _Mexican_, 432-50.
Beal, Captain John, capture of his ship _Essex_ by French privateers
(1690), 21.
Bentley, Rev. William, diary of; account of Madame Susannah Hathorne’s
recollections of witchcraft persecutions, 26;
loss of ship _Brutus_, 220;
rides to Marblehead on a gun-carriage to help save the
_Constitution_, 375.
_Betsey_, schooner, taken by French frigate (1759), 31.
Boardman, Francis, his quaint sea journals, 35;
his poetry, 37;
his superstitions, 38.
Bertram, John, the last great shipping merchant of Salem, 487;
his ventures to South America and Zanzibar, 489-90.
_John Bertram_, ship, built and launched in sixty days for California
trade, 491.
Bowditch, Nathaniel, his precocious youth as a prodigy of learning,
301;
sea life and voyages including journal of stay in Manila, 304-9;
his “Practical Navigator,” 299;
honors paid him after death, 298;
his bequest to Salem Marine Society, 309.
Bowditch, William, held in bondage by Barbary pirates (1700), 22.
Breed, Holten J., captain of privateer _Grand Turk_, 370.
Briggs, Enos, master builder of the _Essex_ frigate, 232.
Burlingame, Anson, U. S. Minister to China, his account of the death
of Frederick Townsend Ward, 472-4.
Butman, Captain John G., commander of brig _Mexican_, 431.
Carey, William, his life as a castaway in the Fijis, 417.
Carnes, Captain Jonathan, fetches home first cargoes of wild pepper
from Sumatra (1795), 185.
_Caroline_, cutter, hazardous voyage of Captain Richard Cleveland
in, 332-35.
Chever, Captain James, his brilliant career as a privateersman,
358-66.
Chronometer, invention and perfection of, 293-94.
Cleveland, George, journal of voyage to Japan (1800), 257-63.
Cleveland, Captain Richard, his recollections of methods and
enterprises of typical Salem merchants, 174;
journal and description of his voyages, 329;
obituary notice of, 352;
captured in ship _Telemaco_, by a British frigate, 367.
_Cleopatra’s Barge_, first American yacht, voyage of, 207-13.
Commerce, decline of foreign, 17;
British restrictions on American, 29.
Conant, Roger, his settlement of Salem, 18.
Crowninshield, six brothers at sea, 204;
Benjamin W., Secretary of Navy, 205;
George, builds first American yacht, 206;
his notable voyage to the Mediterranean, 207-241;
brings body of Captain James Lawrence from Halifax in brig
_Henry_, 376;
Benjamin, Jr., voyage to Mocha in _America_, 355.
Custom House, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s description of, 17, 492-3;
decline of shipping business, 484.
Dana, Richard Henry, mentions exploits of Captain Richard Cleveland
on coast of Lower California, 348.
Derby, Elias Hasket, foremost in equipping Salem privateers of
Revolution, 96;
sends _Grand Turk_ on first American voyage to Cape of Good Hope,
173;
recaptures schooner _Amity_ and restores her to her skipper, 177;
education as a merchant and successful voyages, 181-2;
sends _Astrea_ on first American voyage to Manila (1796), 186;
contributes $10,000 to building _Essex_ frigate, 231.
Derby, Elias Hasket, Jr., narrative of the brilliant voyage of the
_Mount Vernon_ (1799), 190-92.
Derby, Captain John, carries first news of Lexington and Concord to
England in _Quero_, 159-69;
one of owners of ship _Columbia_ which explored Northwest coast and
discovered Columbia River, 170.
Derby, Captain Richard, voyage to the West Indies in the _Volante_
(1741); copy of instructions from owners, 30.
Derby, Captain Samuel, voyage to Japan in _Margaret_ (1800), 257.
Derby Wharf, its privateering activity during Revolution, 64;
its vanished greatness, 17.
_Desire_, West Indiaman, first ship trading from Salem (1640), 20.
DeSoto, pirate, gallant rescue of crew of _Minerva_, 447.
Devereux, Captain James, voyage to Japan in _Franklin_ (1799), 252-6.
Dike Anthony, master mariner, frozen to death with crew after
shipwreck
on Cape Cod, 32.
_Doggett, Charles_, brig, carries descendants of _Bounty_ mutineers
from Tahiti to Pitcairn Island, 407.
Driver, Captain Michael, his misfortunes at the hands of privateers
and freebooters, 31.
Driver, Captain William (see _Charles Doggett_, brig), 407.
Dutch intercourse with Japan in 1799, 251.
Eagleston, Captain John H., career in South Seas, 407;
rescues crew of _Glide_ in Fijis, 429.
East India Marine Society, history and purpose, 10;
resolutions adopted at death of Nathaniel Bowditch, 298;
report of committee to examine “Practical Navigator,” 300.
Embargo, disastrous effects of, 482-3.
Endicott, Captain Chas. M., capture of his vessel, the _Friendship_,
by Malay pirates, 378.
Endicott, John, first governor of colony, 18.
_Endeavor_, first American ship to pass through Straits of
Magellan, 494.
English, Philip, first great shipping merchant of Salem;
copy of bill of lading, 24;
his mansion, 25;
trial of his wife for witchcraft, 25-28;
letter of instructions to one of his shipmasters (1722), 28.
_Essex_, ship, loses boatswain in sea fight (1695), 21.
_Essex_, frigate, popular subscription raised to build, 231;
details of her building, 233;
dimensions, 295;
first American war vessel to pass Cape of Good Hope, 239;
fight with the _Phoebe_ and the _Cherub_, 241-46;
broadside ballad describing her gallant end, 247.
_Exchange_, ketch, taken by French ship off Block Island (1695), 21.
Fairfield, William, letter written on board a Salem slaver, 222.
_Fellowship_, ketch, taken by French privateers (1690), 21.
Felt, Captain John, defies British at North Bridge, 158.
Forbes, Robert Bennet, his reminiscences of life at sea, 203, 312.
Fox, Ebenezer, an account of recruiting for State cruiser in
Revolution, 68.
_Franklin_, ship, voyage to Japan (1799), 252-6.
_Friendship_, tragedy of the, 378.
Fuller, Captain Thomas, seaman in brig _Mexican_, 431;
captured by pirates, 434;
incident of trial of pirates, 446.
Gardner, Samuel, diary of voyage to Gibraltar (1759), 33-5.
_Gazette, Salem_, denounciation of Boston Massacre, 150;
account of Lexington and Concord fights, 166;
description of launching of frigate _Essex_, 233;
trial of pirates of _Pinda_, 444.
Gage, General Thomas, transfers seat of Colonial government from
Boston to Salem, 151-53.
_George_, ship, remarkably successful career of, 198-9.
Gillis, Captain James D., his services to navigation, 378.
_Glide_, wreck of, 408.
Gordon, “Chinese,” 467.
_Grand Turk_, ship, first American vessel at Cape of Good Hope, 173.
_Grand Turk_, privateer of 1812, log of cruises under Captain Nathan
Green, 370.
Gray, William, lieutenant of privateer _Jack_ (1782), 74;
owns great fleet of ships in foreign trade, 202;
contributes $10,000 to building _Essex_ frigate, 231.
Guam, description of (1801), 279.
Haraden, Jonathan, privateersman, first commission as lieutenant of
_Tyrannicide_, 78;
commands the _Pickering_ in spectacular battle with the
_Achilles_, 80;
captures three British armed vessels in one engagement, 85;
stories of his gallantry and brilliant seamanship, 87-89;
his fight with the king’s packet, 90;
makes rigging for _Essex_ frigate in his rope-walk, 233.
Haswell, William, journal of a voyage to Guam, 274.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, in the Salem Custom House, 6;
his father’s log, 7;
descriptions of Salem as a decaying port, 492.
Heaving down a ship, description of, 409.
Henry of Portugal, Prince, encourages improvement in science of
navigation, 290.
Howe, Captain Ephriam, lives eight months alone on a desolate
island, 32.
Ingersoll, Captain Jonathan, makes first American voyage to Cape of
Good Hope, 176.
Insurance, marine, premium rates of eighteenth century, 30.
Jones, John Paul, proclamation calling for seamen for _Ranger_, 72;
ballad celebrating escape of _Ranger_ from British squadron, 71.
Kehew, Captain John, commanding privateer _America_, 358.
Kirwan, Dr. Richard, capture of his library by Beverly privateer, 302.
Lawrence, Captain James, commander of _Chesapeake_, his funeral in
Salem, 376.
Laurens, Henry, United States Minister to Holland, his capture and
imprisonment, 126.
Li Hung Chang, his official tribute to memory of Ward, 469.
Leslie, Colonel, his retreat from North Bridge, Salem, 154.
Little, Captain Luther, adventures as a merchant sailor, 98;
on board the _Protector_ in her fight with the _Admiral Duff_, 142.
McHenry, James, Secretary of War, letter urging naval measures to
protect American commerce, 230.
Magellan, journal of his discovery of the Marianne Islands (Guam),
273.
Manila, first American voyage to, journal of Nathaniel Bowditch, 304.
Manley, Captain John, dashing career as naval officer and capture by
British frigate, 119;
challenges fellow prisoner to duel, 128.
Marine Museum, unique relics and collections in, 14.
_Marquis de Somereulas_, ship, rescues remnant of company of English
transport, 217.
Martineau, Harriet, describes Salem of seventy-five years ago, 13.
Mason, Colonel David, takes leading part in opposing British at North
Bridge, 156.
_Minerva_, ship, gallant rescue of her crew by pirate de Soto, 447.
_Montgomery_, privateer, fight with English packet, 374.
_Morse, Prof._, Edward S., director of Peabody Museum, 16.
Navigation, early instruments and methods of, 290.
_New Priscilla_, brig, crew butchered by pirates, 441.
North Bridge, Salem, scene of first armed clash of Revolution, 154.
Orne, Captain Joseph, slain with his crew by Arabs, 216.
Osgood, John, lieutenant of privateer _Fame_, quells mutiny, 94;
captured by British frigate, 95.
Peabody, Joseph, career as shipping merchant, 197;
repulse of British boarding party on _Ranger_, 199.
Perkins & Co., letter to agents in Canton, showing immense reward of
commercial daring, 202.
Perkins, Thomas, supercargo, letter of instructions, 182-4.
Pickering, Timothy, takes part in affair with British at North
Bridge, 154.
_Pilgrim_, ship, fight with Spanish frigate, 96.
Pirates, expedition against (1689), 41;
ketch _Margaret_ destroyed by, 42;
brigantine _Charles_ captured by Quelch, 43;
execution of Quelch and others, 44;
notarial records describe encounter of ship _Hopewell_ with, 43;
protest of Captain John Shattuck relating capture by, 45;
adventures of Philip Ashton while in the hands of Ned Low, 46-59;
fiendish cruelty of, 441;
capture of brig _Mexican_, 434;
trial and execution of eleven pirates, 444-49.
Porter, Captain David, takes command of _Essex_ frigate, 240;
fights the _Phoebe_ and the _Cherub_, 241-47.
Ports, foreign, in which Salem ships traded (1810-1830), 15.
_Potomac_, frigate, bombardment of Malay settlement of Qualah
Battoo, 402.
Preble, Captain Edward, first commander of _Essex_ frigate, 236.
Privateers, number of Salem vessels in Revolution, 58;
copy of bill of sale of prize shares, 64;
recruiting with fife and drum, 67;
tavern bill for rendezvous of crew, 68;
in War of 1812, 353;
small craft employed, 499;
articles of agreement, 65;
list of Salem privateers in Revolution, 500;
in War of 1812, 506.
_Quero_, schooner, carries first news to England of _Lexington_ and
_Concord_ fights, 159.
_Quill_, brig, Captain Kinsman, in South Seas, 434.
Rantoul, Robert S., narrative and documents concerning General
Frederick Townsend Ward, 451;
eulogy of Salem commerce, 492.
_Register, Essex_, account of piracy of Mexican, 442.
Richardson, Captain William, voyage to the Fijis, 406.
Rousillon, Count de, voyages and adventures with Captain Richard
Cleveland, 343.
Ropes, Captain David, death in privateering action, 72;
Captain Joseph, commander of privateer _America_ in War of 1812,
357.
Rowan, Captain, plunder of his ship by Governor of Valparaiso, 347.
_Rubicon_, ship, captain’s sentimental cipher in log, 213.
Russell, William, capture in ship _Jason_, 119;
account of life in Old Mill Prison, reenlistment and captivity in
the
_Jersey_ prison ship, 143;
untimely death, 148.
_Sailor’s Vade Mecum_, instructions for preparing merchant ships for
action, 60.
Salem Marine Society, its foundation and records, 11-12.
_Salem Packet_, captures French ship, 21.
_Scorpion_, privateer schooner, quaint log of, 76.
Silver, Captain Peter, rescues skipper’s wife from bark _Kilmars_,
485.
Silsbee, Nathaniel, beginning of his sea life at fourteen, 311;
a captain at eighteen, 313;
commands ship _Benjamin_ on voyage to the Orient at nineteen, 314;
encounters a privateer, 318;
impressment of one of his seamen by British frigate, 319;
his ship _Portland_ confiscated by the French at Malaga, and
released
because of his remarkable sagacity and courage, 321;
commands a merchant fleet in attack by French privateer, 326;
United States Senator from Massachusetts, 328.
Snell, Captain Nicholas, his meeting with pirate de Soto, 449.
Story, Justice Joseph, trial of pirates of _Pinda_, 445.
_Success_, letter of marque, singular entry in log of, 76.
Thoreau, Henry D., describes the business of a successful Salem
shipping merchant, 187.
Tory, letter from a, describing conditions in Salem during
Revolution, 93.
Turner, Captain John, captures British ship after hard fight, 96.
Upton, Captain Benjamin, his desperate fight in privateer
_Montgomery_, 374.
Vandeford, Captain Benjamin, in the South Seas as pilot for Commodore
Wilkes, 406;
at the Fijis in ship _Clay_, 418.
Ward, Frederick Townsend, his forebears, 452;
life as a mariner, 454;
with Walker, the filibuster, 455;
leader of the Chinese “Ever Victorious Army,” 458;
death in battle, 465;
tributes of foreign officers to his valor, 466;
Imperial decree deifying his memory, 468;
dedication of Chinese temple in his honor, 474.
Warehouses, cargoes that filled them a century ago, 16.
Waters, John, bill of sale of privateering shares, 65.
Weld, Dr. Charles G., gift of building to Peabody Academy, 15.
West, Captain Ebenezer, biography of, 179;
Captain Edward, 180;
Captain Nathaniel, 181.
Whepley, David, his life among the Fiji Islanders, 411.
Wilkes, Commodore, in the South Seas, 406.
Young, John, one of first white men to dwell in Sandwich Islands, 349.
Transcriber’s Notes
pg 19 Changed: yoemanry for the most part
to: yeomanry for the most part
pg 34 Changed: 28—Gibralter—Went on shore.
to: 28—Gibraltar—Went on shore.
pg 34 Changed: attacked by 3 of the piratical Tereffa
to: attacked by 3 of the piratical Teriffa
pg 87 Changed: he went after the consort and look her
to: he went after the consort and took her
pg 221 Changed: he was downed or eaten by crocodiles
to: he was drowned or eaten by crocodiles
pg 224 Changed: their spirits than the Africians
to: their spirits than the Africans
pg 224 Changed: they might obtain full caroges
to: they might obtain full cargoes
pg 316 Changed: He proceded no farther than the Cape
to: He proceeded no farther than the Cape
pg 368 Changed: by the irresistable means of brute force
to: by the irresistible means of brute force
pg 426 Changed: profusely annointed with cocoanut oil
to: profusely anointed with cocoanut oil
pg 474 Changed: persons interested, to accomnany him
to: persons interested, to accompany him