The golden age of the American Merchant Marine has gone and the
old-time ships have passed away. Their bones lie on the oceans bottom,
on foreign reefs of islands far away, on the rocky ledges off Cape
Horn, or are serving an inglorious fate as coal barges. In our great
Civil War many were destroyed by the “Alabama” or other privateers.
Their old-time commanders and owners are also gone from the stage of
action. But if you will travel down to old Cape Cod you will still find
a few of them left, the neat, clean, white houses, giving proof of the
fact that they are yet “on deck,” and keeping things “shipshape.” The
early training of these men was, for the most part, received on the
fishermen that went to the Grand Banks, from which they “graduated”
into the service of the Merchant Marine.
These little “_Sea Yarns_” are true stories from chapters in my own
life, given to my readers as little experiences of a sailor of the
old school. The old-time “_Yankee_” skipper was an important factor
in placing the American Flag in every known port of the world and in
proving the commercial superiority of its men and ships. Those times
are now long past, and remain in our minds as remembrances only, of a
day when American ships and American men were supreme in the maritime
world.