In its earliest days, of course, privateering was the weapon of a nation weak at sea against one with a large navy. So when the colonies threw down the gage of battle to Great Britain, almost the first act of the Revolutionary government was to authorize private owners to fit out armed ships to prey on British commerce. Some of the shipowners of New England had enjoyed some experience of the profits of this peculiar industry in the Seven Years' War, when quite a number of colonial privateers harried the French on the seas, and accordingly the response was prompt. In enterprises of this character the system of profit-sharing, already noted in connection with whaling, obtained. The owners took a certain share of each prize, and the remainder was divided among the officers and crew in certain fixed proportions. How great were the profits accruing to a privateersman in a "run of luck" might be illustrated by two facts set forth by Maclay, whose "History of American Privateers" is the chief authority on the subject. He asserts that "it frequently happened that even the common sailors received as their share in one cruise, over and above their wages, one thousand dollars--a small fortune in those days for a mariner," and further that "one of the boys in the 'Ranger,' who less than a month before had left a farm, received as his share one ton of sugar, from thirty to forty gallons of fourth-proof Jamaica rum, some twenty pounds of cotton, and about the same quantity of ginger, logwood, and allspice, besides seven hundred dollars in money." To be sure, in order to enjoy gains like these, the men had to risk the perils of battle in addition to the common ones of the sea; but it is a curious fact, recognized in all branches of industry, that the mere peril of a calling does not deter men from following it, and when it promises high profit it is sure to be overcrowded. In civil life to-day the most dangerous callings are those which are, as a rule, the most ill paid. Very speedily the privateersmen became the most prosperous and the most picturesque figures along the waterside of the Atlantic cities. While the dignified merchant or shipowner, with a third interest in the "Daredevil" or the "Flybynight," might still maintain the sober demeanor of a good citizen and a pillar of the church, despite his profits of fifty or an hundred per cent. on each cruise, the gallant sailors who came back to town with pockets full of easily-won money, and the recollection of long and dismal weeks at sea behind them, were spectacular in their rejoicings. Their money was poured out freely while it lasted; and their example stirred all the townsboys, from the best families down to the scourings of the docks, to enter the same gentlemanlike profession.