It is, then, with no admiration for the calling, and yet with no underestimate of its value to the nation, that I recount some of the achievements of those who followed it. The periods when American privateering was important were those of the Revolution and the War of 1812. During the Civil War the loss incurred by privateers fell upon our own people, and it is curious to note how different a tone the writers on this subject adopt when discussing the ravages of the Confederate privateers and those which we let loose upon British commerce in the brave days of 1812. A true type of the Revolutionary privateersmen was Captain Silas Talbot, of Massachusetts. He was one of the New England lads apprenticed to the sea at an early age, having been made a cabin-boy at twelve. He rose to command and acquired means in his profession, as we have seen was common among our early merchant sailors, and when the Revolution broke out was living comfortably in his own mansion in Providence. He enlisted in Washington's army, but left it to become a privateer; and from that service he stepped to the quarter-deck of a man-of-war. This was not an uncommon line of development for the early privateersmen; and, indeed, it was not unusual to find navy officers, temporarily without commands, taking a cruise or two as privateers, until Congress should provide more ships for the regular service--a system which did not tend to make a Congress, which was niggardly at best, hasten to provide public vessels for work which was being reasonably well done at private expense. As a result of this system, we find such famous naval names as Decatur, Porter, Hopkins, Preble, Barry, and Barney also figuring in the lists of privateersmen. Talbot's first notable exploit was clearing New York harbor of several British men-of-war by the use of fire-ships. Washington, with his army, was then encamped at Harlem Heights, and the British ships were in the Hudson River menacing his flank. Talbot, in a fire-ship, well loaded with combustibles, dropped down the river and made for the biggest of the enemy's fleet, the "Asia." Though quickly discovered and made the target of the enemy's battery, he held his vessel on her course until fairly alongside of and entangled with the "Asia," when the fuses were lighted and the volcanic craft burst into roaring flames from stem to stern. So rapid was the progress of the flames that Talbot and his companions could scarcely escape with their lives from the conflagration they had themselves started, and he lay for days, badly burned and unable to see, in a little log hut on the Jersey shore. The British ships were not destroyed; but, convinced that the neighborhood was unsafe for them, they dropped down the bay; so the end sought for was attained. In 1779 Talbot was given command of the sloop "Argo," of 100 tons; "a mere shallop, like a clumsy Albany sloop," says his biographer. Sixty men from