The new government, formed under the Constitution, was prompt to recognize the demands of the shipping interests upon the country.  In the very first measure adopted by Congress steps were taken to encourage American shipping by differential duties levied on goods imported in American and foreign vessels.  Moreover, in the tonnage duties imposed by Congress an advantage of almost 50 per cent. was given ships built in the United States and owned abroad.  Under this stimulus the shipping interests throve, despite hostile legislation in England, and the disordered state of the high seas, where French and British privateers were only a little less predatory than Algierian corsairs or avowed pirates.  It was at this early day that Yankee skippers began making those long voyages that are hardly paralleled to-day when steamships hold to a single route like a trolley car between two towns.  The East Indies was a favorite trading point.  Carrying a cargo suited to the needs of perhaps a dozen different peoples, the vessel would put out from Boston or Newport, put in at Madeira perhaps, or at some West Indian port, dispose of part of its cargo, and proceed, stopping again and again on its way, and exchanging its goods for money or for articles thought to be more salable in the East Indies.  Arrived there, all would be sold, and a cargo of tea, coffee, silks, spices, nankeen cloth, sugar, and other products of the country taken on.  If these goods did not prove salable at home the ship would make yet another voyage and dispose of them at Hamburg or some other Continental port.  In 1785 a Baltimore ship showed the Stars and Stripes in the Canton River, China.  In 1788 the ship “Atlantic,” of Salem, visited Bombay and Calcutta.  The effect of being barred from British ports was not, as the British had expected, to put an abrupt end to American maritime enterprise.  It only sent our hardy seamen on longer voyages, only brought our merchants into touch with the commerce of the most distant lands.  Industry, like men, sometimes thrives upon obstacles.

[Illustration:  “AFTER A BRITISH LIEUTENANT HAD PICKED THE BEST OF HER CREW”]

For twenty-five years succeeding the adoption of the Constitution the maritime interest—­both shipbuilding and shipowning—­thrived more, perhaps, than any other gainful industry pursued by the Americans.  Yet it was a time when every imaginable device was employed to keep our people out of the ocean-carrying trade.  The British regulations, which denied us access to their ports, were imitated by the French.  The Napoleonic wars came on, and the belligerents bombarded each other with orders in council and decrees that fell short of their mark, but did havoc among neutral merchantmen.  To the ordinary perils of the deep the danger of capture—­lawful or unlawful—­by cruiser or privateer, was always to be added.  The British were still enforcing their so-called “right of search,” and many an American ship was left short-handed far out