so as to be able to beat off either Malay proas, or Chinese junks.
The New York ships, loaded for the West Indies, were prepared to
do battle with the picaroons that swarmed in the Spanish main;
while the fast craft from Baltimore could fight as well as they
could run. Wherever an American seaman went, he not only had to
contend with all the legitimate perils of the sea, but he had also
to regard almost every stranger as a foe. Whether this foe called
himself pirate or privateer mattered but little. French, Spaniards,
Algerines, Malays, from all alike our commerce suffered, and against
all, our merchants were forced to defend themselves. The effect of
such a state of things, which made commerce so remunerative that
the bolder spirits could hardly keep out of it, and so hazardous
that only the most skilful and daring could succeed in it, was to
raise up as fine a set of seamen as ever manned a navy. The stern
school in which the American was brought up, forced him into habits
of independent thought and action which it was impossible that the
more protected Briton could possess. He worked more intelligently
and less from routine, and while perfectly obedient and amenable
to discipline, was yet able to judge for himself in an emergency.
He was more easily managed than most of his kind--being shrewd,
quiet, and, in fact, comparatively speaking, rather moral than
otherwise; if he was a New Englander, when he retired from a sea
life he was not unapt to end his days as a deacon. Altogether there
could not have been better material for a fighting crew than cool,
gritty American Jack. Moreover, there was a good nucleus of veterans
to begin with, who were well fitted to fill the more responsible
positions, such as captains of guns, etc. These were men who had
cruised in the little _Enterprise_ after French privateers, who had
been in the _Constellation_ in her two victorious fights, or who,
perhaps, had followed Decatur when with only eighty men he cut out