The Original Fables of La Fontaine / Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney

9, its fleets have always been larger and more important than the American deep-water commerce nor have decay and misfortune overtaken them. It is a traffic which flou

ors, and shipwrecks were pitifully frequent. In no Hall of Fame will you find the name of Captain Andrew Robinson of Gloucester, but he was nevertheless an illustrious benefactor and deserves a place among the most useful Americans. His invention was the Yankee schooner of fore-and-aft rig,

e odd two-master slid g

"See how she scoons!"

et her be!" This launch

7

wo hundred brigs and schooners on the offshore banks. But to Gloucester belongs the glory of sending the first schooner to the Grand Bank. * From these two rock-bound harbors went thousands of trained seamen to man the privateers and the ships of the Continental navy, slinging their hammocks on the

rican Merchant

ity of interests, a race of pure native or English stock, deserving this tribute which was paid to them in Congress: "Every person on board our fishing vessels has an interest in common with his associates; their reward depends upon their industry and enterprise. Much caution i

one forecastle to the other. With a taste for an easier life than the stormy, freezing Banks, the young Gloucesterman would sign on for a voyage to Pernambuco or Havana and so be fired with ambition to become a mate or master and take to deep water after a while. In this way was m

her. The Gloucester fishing schooner, perfect of her type, stanch, fleet, and powerful, still drives homeward from the Banks under a tall press of canvas, and her crew still divide the earnings, share and share, as did their forefathers a hundred and fifty years ago. But

amen for the navy and merchant marine. In 1858 the bounty system was abandoned, however, and the fishermen were left to shift for themselves, earning small profits at peril of their lives and preferring to follow the sea because they knew no other profession.

e amounted to 193,459

American Navigation Act of 1817. It remained a firmly established doctrine of maritime policy until the Great War compelled its suspension as an emergency measure. The theories of protection and free trade have been bitterly debated for generations, but in this instance the practice was eminently

land, to Bordeaux. A schooner making the run from Portland to Savannah lays more knots over her stern than a tramp bound out from England to Lisbon. It is a shorter voyage from Cardiff to Algiers than an American skipper pricks off on his chart when he takes his steamer from New York to New Orleans or Galveston. This coastwi

ore-and-aft sails could not be handled with safety. They were difficult to reef or lower in a blow until it was discovered that three masts instead of two made the task much easier. For many years the three-masted schooner was the most popular kind of American merchant vessel. They clustered in every Atlantic port and were built in the yar

and five thousand tons of coal, and whose masts soared a hundred and fifty feet above the deck. Square-rigged ships of the same capacity would have required crews of a hundred men, but these schooners were comfortably handled by a company of fifteen all told, only ten of whom were in the forecastle. There was no need of sweating and hauling at braces and halliards. The steam-winch undertook all this toil. The tremendous sails, s

t schooners alongshore winter and summer; across Nantucket Shoals and around Cape Cod, and their salvation depended on shortening sail ahead of the gale. Let the wind once blow and the sea get up, and it was almost impossible to strip the canvas off an unwieldy six-mast

r fleet began to reap fabulous dividends and their masters shared in the unexpected opulence. Besides their primage they owned shares in their vessels, a thirty-second or so, and presently their settlement at the end of a voyage coastwise amounted to an income of a thousand dollars a month. They earned this money, and the managing owners cheerfully paid them, for there had been lean years and uncomplaining service and the sailor had proved

on the fight because time is now more valuable than cheapness of transportation. The schooner might bowl down to No

hat were to be found on every bay and inlet of New England. They were still owned and sailed by men who ashore were friends and neighbors. Even now you may find during your summer wanderings some stumpy, weatherworn two-master running on for shelter overnight, which has plied up and down the coast for fifty o

It is a matter of vital concern that the freight on spruce boards from Bangor to New York has increased to five dollars a thousand feet. Many of these craft belong to grandfatherly skippers who dared not venture past Cape Cod in December, lest the venerable Matilda Emerson or the valetudinarian Joshua R. Coggswell should open up and founder in a blow. During the winter storms these skippers used to hug the kitchen stove in bleak farmhouses

s with the tales that are told. It is an informal club of coastwise skippers and the old energy begins to show itself once more. They move with a brisker gait than whe

like nothin' better than to fill her full of suthin' for the west coast of Africy, same

-box of yours 'ud be scared to death without a harbor to run into every time the sun clou

't seem as neighborly as Phippsburg and Machiasport. I'll chance it as far

mmer visitor finds a fresh attraction in watching the new schooners rise from the stocks, and the gay pageant of launching them, every mast ablaze with bunting, draws crowds to the water-front. And as a business venture, with somewhat of the tang of old-fashioned romance, the casual stranger is now and then tempted to purchase a sixty-fourth "piece" of a splendid Yankee four-master and keep in touch wit

GRAPHI

ive too little space to the maritime achievements of the nation.

ce from 1620 to 1902" (1902). This is the most nearly complete volume of

901), "The Story of the New England Whalers" (1908). Mr. Spears has sought original sources for m

seaport of the Atlantic coast, drawn from log-books and other manuscript collections. "The Book of Buried Treasure: Being a True History of the G

9). The only book of its kind, and indispensable to thos

his recent volume, written from an English point of view, illu

the narratives of those master mariners

he latest edition, handsomely illustrated, (1915). The classic

Enterprises" (1842). This is one of the fascinating autobiograph

7). Another of the rare human documents of blue water. It des

lling, spray-swept, true story. Far and away the best account

). Random facts and memories of a famous Boston ship-own

Old Sailing Ship Days" (1908). The enterta

" (1913). Another of the true romances, recommended for a lively s

found in the libraries. Typical of them is "A Journal of the Travels and Sufferings of Daniel Saun

orks the follow

treatment of American seamen, with many instances on shocking bru

ment" (1909). An elaborate history of the development of the sa

Commerce," 4 vols. (1874-76). An English work, notably

(1914). An English economist explains the

e Chronicles of Canada Series." Gl

imes of Stephen Girard, Mariner

olicy to the merchant marine i

reased, Became Great, Declined, and Decayed" (1882). A

can Navigation: The Political History of Its Rise and Ruin" (1902). These works are statistical a

Some Account of the Causes of Its Forme

merican Shipping: Its Prestige

ion of Ships: The Navy and

Atlantic Ferry: Its Ships

the Congressional Report of the Merchant Marine