en he meets an honest sailor who may have all his earnings
on board his ship but who carries an enemy's flag, he plunders him of
every cent and leaves him the poor consolation that it is done according
to law.... When the Malay subjects of Abba Thule cut down the cocoanut
trees of an enemy, in the spirit of private revenge, he asked them why
they acted in opposition to the principles on which they knew he always
made and conducted a war. They answered, and let the reason make us
humble, 'The English do so.'"

In his grand East Indiaman young Captain Delano traded on the coast of
India but soon came to grief. The enterprise had been too large for him
to swing with what cash and credit he could muster, and the ship was
sold from under him to pay her debts. Again on the beach, with one
solitary gold moidore in his purse, he found a friendly American skipper
who offered him a passage to Philadelphia, which he accepted with the
pious reflection that, although his mind was wounded and mortified by
the financial disaster, his motives had been perfectly pure and honest.
He never saw his native land with so little pleasure as on this return
to it, he assures us, and the shore on which he would have leaped with
delight was covered with gloom and sadness.

Now what makes it so well worth while to sketch in brief outline the
careers of one and another of these bygone shipmasters is that they
accurately reflected the genius and the temper of their generation.
There was, in truth, no such word as failure in their lexicon. It is
this quality that appeals to us beyond all else. Thrown on their beam
ends, they were presently planning something else, eager to shake dice
with destiny and with courage unbroken. It was so with Amasa Delano, who
promptly went to work "with what spirits I could revive within me. After
a time they returned to their former elasticity."

He obtained a position as master builder in a shipyard, saved some
money, borrowed more, and with one of his brothers was soon blithely
building a vessel of two hundred tons for a voyage into the Pacific
and to the northwest coast after seals. They sailed along Patagonia and
found much to interest them, dodged in and out of the ports of Chili and
Peru, and incidentally recaptured a Spanish ship which was in the hands
of the slaves who formed her cargo.

This was all in the day's work and happened at the island of Santa
Maria, not far from Juan Fernandez, where Captain Delano'