surprising that Captain Richard Derby was chosen to command the
Essex, but he was abroad in a ship of his own and she sailed
under Captain Edward Preble of the Navy.

The war cloud passed and the merchant argosies overflowed the
wharves and havens of New England, which had ceased to monopolize
the business on blue water. New York had become a seaport with
long ranks of high-steeved bowsprits soaring above pleasant
Battery Park and a forest of spars extending up the East River.
In 1790 more than two thousand ships, brigs, schooners, and
smaller craft had entered and cleared, and the merchants met in
the coffee-houses to discuss charters, bills-of-lading, and
adventures. Sailors commanded thrice the wages of laborers
ashore. Shipyards were increasing and the builders could build as
large and swift East Indiamen as those of which Boston and Salem
boasted.

Philadelphia had her Stephen Girard, whose wealth was earned in
ships, a man most remarkable and eccentric, whose career was one
of the great maritime romances. Though his father was a
prosperous merchant of Bordeaux engaged in the West India trade,
he was shifting for himself as a cabin-boy on his father's ships
when only fourteen years old. With no schooling, barely able to
read and write, this urchin sailed between Bordeaux and the
French West Indies for nine years, until he gained the rank of
first mate. At the age of twenty-six he entered the port of
Philadelphia in command of a sloop which had narrowly escaped
capture by British frigates. There he took up his domicile and
laid the foundation of his fortune in small trading ventures to
New Orleans and Santo Domingo.