“O yes,” said Davis; “that business is settled.  Cornelius Vanderbilt is the man.”

He was thunderstruck.

“What!” said the commissary, observing his astonishment, is it you?”

“My name is Cornelius Vanderbilt.”

“Well,” said Davis, “don’t you know why we have given the contract to you?”

“No.”

“Why, it is because we want this business done, and we know you’ll do it.”

Matthew L. Davis, as the confidant of Aaron Burr, did a good many foolish things in his life, but on this occasion he did a wise one.  The contractor asked him but one favor, which was, that the daily load of stores might be ready for him every evening at six o’clock.  There were six posts to be supplied:  Harlem, Hurl Gate, Ward’s Island, and three others in the harbor or at the Narrows, each of which required one load a week.  Young Vanderbilt did all this work at night; and although, during the whole period of three months, he never once failed to perform his contract, he was never once absent from his stand in the day-time.  He slept when he could, and when he could not sleep he did without it.  Only on Sunday and Sunday night could he be said to rest.  There was a rare harvest for boatmen that summer.  Transporting sick and furloughed soldiers, naval and military officers, the friends of the militia men, and pleasure-seekers visiting the forts, kept those of the boatmen who had “escaped the draft,” profitably busy.  It was not the time for an enterprising man to be absent from his post.

From the gains of that summer he built a superb little schooner, the Dread; and, the year following, the joyful year of peace, he and his brother-in-law.  Captain De Forrest, launched the Charlotte, a vessel large enough for coasting service, and the pride of the harbor for model and speed.  In this vessel, when the summer’s work was over, he voyaged sometimes along the Southern coast, bringing home considerable freights from the Carolinas.  Knowing the coast thoroughly, and being one of the boldest and most expert of seamen, he and his vessel were always ready when there was something to be done of difficulty and peril.  During the three years succeeding the peace of 1815, he saved three thousand dollars a year; so that, in 1818, he possessed two or three of the nicest little craft in the harbor, and a cash capital of nine thousand dollars.

The next step of Captain Vanderbilt astonished both his rivals and his friends.  He deliberately abandoned his flourishing business, to accept the post of captain of a small steamboat, at a salary of a thousand dollars a year.  By slow degrees, against the opposition of the boatmen, and the terrors of the public, steamboats had made their way; until, in 1817, ten years after Fulton’s experimental trip, the long head of Captain Vanderbilt clearly comprehended that the supremacy of sails was gone forever, and he resolved to ally himself to the new power before being overcome gone