this very day,
Good-bye, fare you well,
Good-bye, fare you well.
We're outward bound this very day,
Hurrah, my boys, we're outward bound.

CHAPTER X. BOUND COASTWISE

One thinks of the old merchant marine in terms of the clipper ship and
distant ports. The coasting trade has been overlooked in song and story;
yet, since the year 1859, 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 flourished from the
beginning, ingeniously adapting itself to new conditions, unchecked by
war, and surviving with splendid vigor, under steam and sail, in this
modern era.

The seafaring pioneers won their way from port to port of the
tempestuous Atlantic coast in tiny ketches, sloops, and shallops when
the voyage of five hundred miles from New England to Virginia was a
prolonged and hazardous adventure. Fog and shoals and lee shores beset
these coastwise sailors, 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, and he gave to this type of vessel
its name. * Seaworthy, fast, and easily handled, adapted for use in
the early eighteenth century when inland transportation was almost
impossible, the schooner carried on trade between the colonies and was
an important factor in the growth of the fisheries.

* It is said that as the odd two-master slid gracefully into the water,
a spectator exclaimed: "See how she scoons!" "Aye," answered Captain
Robinson, "a SCHOONER let her be!" This launching took place in 1718 or
1714.

Before the Revolution the first New England schooners were beating up
to the Grand Bank of Newfoundland after cod and halibut. They were of
no more than fifty tons' burden, too small for their task but manned
by fishermen of surpassing hardihood. Marblehead was then the foremost
fishing port with two 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 gun-decks beside the whalemen of
Nantucket. These fisherm