THE STUFF OF ROMANCE.
The Ships and Sailors of Old Salem. By Ralph D. Paine. (Heath Cranton. 21S.) The Ships and Sailors of Old Salem. By Ralph D. Paine. (Heath Cranton. 21S.) THIS book, its author assures us, " describes the deeds of a race of red-blooded Americans who won honour for their flag and renown during the era of its struggle for very existence." The frontispiece is a picture of the beautiful ship " Panay,' one of the last of the Salem fleet bound out from Boston to Manila twenty-five years ago." Salem, once the foremost American shipping port, its name as familiar at sea as that of Bristol or Plymouth, had by then forgotten that Nathaniel Hawthorne was Suryeyor to its Custom House ; its quays were neglected for the super- vision of the immigrant labour in its new factories. Perhaps that is what Mr. Paine implies in his epithet of red-blooded " to Americans of the past, for aliens imbecile enough to leave the factories of one continent for the factories of another may be presumed to have blood of another orof,no colour.
Mr. Paine's devotion to his theme is so attractive that even his impatient references to early English follies in colonial administration ought not to upset the impartiality of the most red-blooded Englishman. His narrative bears witness, in many particulars not usually mentioned in our history books, that the conduct of our forebears was decidedly unseemly. Therefore we ought to forgive him. If we had lived in Boston when English press-gangs ranged it to kidnap men for wars about which they knew little and cared less, we should have found it exasperating. The sight of a red- coat or a tarpaulin hat might have severely tested our Christian convictions. Indeed, when the Revolution had ended in Independence, we still claimed the right to search and
impress, taking men from American ships to swell our recruiting figures. So there was another war to follow.
The truth is, the stuff of romance in this book is so frequently prefaced by wet sand, which is thrown on the deck to prevent the sailors slipping in the blood, that the drum which beats to quarters may be said to throb throughout the volume. Only the fact that the wet sand is historical holds off the feeling of boredom which would certainly over- whelm a reader who for one second forgot that the ferocious lunacies are dated and authentic. The frustrations and futilities—privateers, pirates, letters of marque, wars, embargoes, navigation acts, and confiscations on any pretence
or none so nearly came to destroying hard-working little communities which had enough to do, anyhow, in estab- lishing themselves in a new continent, that Salem was lucky in reaching alive the promising era of factories and alien labour. It is her turn now.
We hear, for instance, of the schooner ' Three Brothers,' Captain Driver, bound to the West Indies in 1759, taken prisoner by a privateer under English colours and sent to Antigua. Ship and cargo were lost. Driver sailed again in the schooner ' Betsy ' for Guadaloupe, but was captured by a French frigate. He ransomed the vessel for four thousand livres, left three hostages, and sailed for home, where he took command of the schooner Mary,' under a flag of truce, and returned to pay the ransom and bring home the hostages. But he was captured by the English privateer Revenge,' and sent to New Providence, Bahama, instead. There he protested before the authorities and was set at liberty with vessel and cargo. His indefatigable fellow-men had not finished with him, however ; for after he redeemed the hostages a French frigate seized Driver's vessel. The hostages and crew were sent to Cuba. Driver was detained for four months, when his vessel was returned to him, and he took it to Jamaica for repairs. " No redress was made," Mr. Paine needlessly informs us.
Yet there were hopeful signs, even in those days. We hear of Cleopatra's Barge.' She was the first American yacht, " the sensation of the hour in every port," and was the property of Captain George Crowningshield, a " patriotic son of Salem," and " a great dandy in his small clothes and Hessian boots with gold tassels." To starboard his remarkable craft showed " a hull of horizontal stripes laid on in most of the colours of the rainbow. To port she was a curious ' herring-bone ' pattern of brilliant hues." So we are not surprised to hear that at Barcelona eight thousand people visited her in admiration, and at Genoa twenty thousand ; nor that the exquisite taste of her decorations astonished the French, whose ardent patriotism had led them to infer that only in France was true taste understood. That was the sort of pleasure ship which resulted from the profits won by a patriotic shipowning house of Salem in the war of 1812. We ask, could modem factories do more ? And we ask, what could Mr. Crowningshield have been taught by any shipowner in our latest war ?
We like best in this most entertaining narrative such instructions as a Miss Harriet Elkin gave to the master of the Messenger,' bound to the East in 1816: " Please to purchase if at Calcutta two net bead with draperies ; if at Batavia or any spice market, nutmegs and mace, or if at Canton, Two Canton Crape shawls of the enclosed colours at $5 a shawl." The ' Messenger ' also was commissioned with " Mrs. Mary Townsend's adventure " :—" Please to purchase lay out five dollars which I send by you, vizt : One Tureen 14 x 10 inches, China. One Nett bead and you will
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