Young Bainbridge was of an athletic manly frame, and early showed a bold spirit, and a love of enterprise. This temperament was likely to interfere with studies directed toward a liberal education, and, at the early age of fifteen, his importunities prevailed on his friends to allow him to go to sea. This must have been about the time when the present form of government went first into operation, and the trade and navigation of the country began to revive. In that day the republic had no marine; the old Alliance frigate, the favorite ship of the Revolution, then sailing out of the port at which young Bainbridge first embarked, as an Indiaman. Philadelphia, for many years after the peace of 1783, produced the best seamen of America. Other ports, doubtless, had as hardy and as adventurous mariners, but the nicety of the art was better taught and practiced on the Delaware than in any other portion of the country. This advantage was thought to be owing to the length of the river and bay, which required more elaborate evolutions to take a ship successfully through, than ports that lay contiguous to the sea. The same superiority has long been claimed for London, and for the same reason, each place having a long and intricate navigation, among shoals, and in a tide’s way, before its wharves can be reached. The comparative decline of the navigation of these two towns is to be attributed to the very difficulties which made expert seamen, though the vast amount of supplies required by the English capital, for its own consumption, causes great bodies of shipping still to frequent the Thames. It is also probable that the superiority formerly claimed for the seamen of these two towns, was in part owing to the circumstances that, being the capitals of their respective countries, they were then in advance of other ports, both as to the arts, generally, and as to the wealth necessary to exhibit them. Young Bainbridge, consequently, enjoyed the advantage of being trained, as a seaman, in what was then the highest American school. Singularly handsome and prepossessing in his appearance, of a vigorous, and commanding frame, with the foundation of a good education, all aided by respectable connections, he was made an officer in the third year of his service. When eighteen, he sailed as chief mate of a ship in the Dutch trade, and on his first voyage, in this capacity, he recovered the vessel from the hands of mutineers, by his personal intrepidity, and physical activity. In the following year, when barely nineteen, the owners gave him command of the same ship. From this time down to the period of his joining the navy, Bainbridge continued in command of different merchant vessels, all of which were employed in the European trade, which was then carried on, by this country, in the height and excitement of the war that succeeded the French revolution.