Although Congress possesses the power to make the laws necessary for the regulation of _Pilots_, and the whole business of pilotage is within its authority, there is no general law for these purposes, and the superintendence of pilots is left to the legislation of the individual States. By the _Act of 7 August, 1789_, it was enacted that all pilots in the bays, inlets, rivers, harbours, and ports of the United States should continue to be regulated by the existing laws of the States respectively, until further legislative proceeding by Congress. The licensing of pilots and fixing rates of pilotage were therefore thus arranged at first; but, as some difficulties arose, it was enacted by the Act 2 March, 1837, that it was lawful for the master or commander of any vessel coming into, or going out of, any port situate upon waters forming the boundaries of any two States to employ any duly licensed or authorised pilot of either State.[15] [Sidenote: Character of American seamen, especially, of the New Englanders.] The native-born American seamen are bold, adventurous, and brave. In their merchant vessels the proportion of native seamen is estimated at about one-third, while it was a common remark that “the rest are rascally Spaniards, surly John Bulls, Zealanders, Malays, anything of any country.” The American native-born seaman is frequently promoted to be an officer, and, sometimes, to the command of large ships, but there are perpetual complaints that the people of the United States do not “take to the sea” with alacrity. Indeed, it is only in the New England States that the sailor’s life may be said to belong to the soil itself, and even the natives of that comparatively barren soil and rigorous climate become sailors, perhaps less from love of adventure and from their natural hardiness, than from necessity. When boys they had, perhaps, widowed mothers to support, younger brothers and sisters to care for, and, there being no other congenial occupation, they “go to sea.” When complaining of his “dog’s life,” the American sailor sits by the hour whittling a stick, and building little boats for his child, recounting at the same time the perils and hardships of the sea. Like British seamen, he has always his pet ship, in which most of his experience has been acquired, and the name of that ship is oftenest on his lips. It is associated with the story of his loves, with the memory of his friendships, and he dates all eras from his several voyages in the vessel of the “one loved name.” As New England was the great storehouse of American seamen, there the best specimens of their seafaring population were to be found. We have seen, even in our time, the puritanical, weather-beaten, Boston skipper—once so famous—sharp as a north-easter, dressed in knee-breeches and buckles, with a three-cornered cocked-hat, not forgetting the pigtail, the very personification of our Commodore Trunnion and Piper of a century ago.