fifty-eight vessels of all sizes to scan the horizon for British
topsails. They accounted for four hundred prizes, or half the
whole number to the credit of American arms afloat. This
preeminence was due partly to freedom from a close blockade and
partly to a seafaring population which was born and bred to its
trade and knew no other. Besides the crews of Salem merchantmen,
privateering enlisted the idle fishermen of ports nearby and the
mariners of Boston whose commerce had been snuffed out by the
British occupation. Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Charleston sent
some splendid armed ships to sea but not with the impetuous rush
nor in anything like the numbers enrolled by this gray old town
whose fame was unique.

For the most part, the records of all these brave ships and the
thousands of men who sailed and sweated and fought in them are
dim and scanty, no more than routine entries in dusty log-books
which read like this: "Filled away in pursuit of a second sail in
the N. W. At 4.30 she hoisted English colors and commenced firing
her stern guns. At 5.90 took in the steering sails, at the same
time she fired a broadside. We opened a fire from our larboard
battery and at 5.30 she struck her colors. Got out the boats and
boarded her. She proved to be the British brig Acorn from
Liverpool to Rio Janeiro, mounting fourteen cannon."* But now and
then one finds in these old sea-journals an entry more intimate
and human, such as the complaint of the master of the privateer
Scorpion, cruising in 1778 and never a prize in sight. "This Book
I made to keep the Accounts of my Voyage but God knows beste what
that will be, for I am at this time very Impashent but I hope
soon there will be a Change to ease my Trubled Mind. On this Day
I was Chaced by Two Ships of War which I tuck to be Enemies, but