[7] Among the leading merchants of Boston and Salem then engaged in this lucrative trade may be mentioned the names of Russell, Derby, Cabot, Thorndike, Barrell, Brown, Perkins, Bryant, Sturgis, Higginson, Shaw, Lloyd, Lee, Preble, Peabody, Mason, Jones, and Gray. From 1786 to 1798, Thomas Russell was one of the most enterprising and successful merchants of Boston. His charities were extensive; he was a warm friend to the clergy, and a liberal supporter of all religious institutions. Curiously enough, a member of the families (by the father and mother’s side), of Perkins and of Bryant and Sturgis (Russell Sturgis), now fills the place which Joshua Bates so long occupied as a leading partner in the house of Baring Brothers and Co., of London; Joshua Bates himself having first come to London as agent for Gray, the last name on the list I have given. Towards the close, however, of last century, Brown and Ives of Providence, Peabody of Salem, and T. H. Smith of New York, with Perkins and Co., and Bryant and Sturgis of Boston, carried on nearly all the trade with China. [8] [Sidenote: Stephen Girard, the rich and eccentric American shipowner.] Though altogether unlike Mr. Russell and the other shipowners and merchants of Boston I have just named, I cannot omit to mention, in connexion with the early history of the Merchant Shipping of the United States, the name of Stephen Girard, one of the most prosperous and eccentric of men, who was long known as the “rich shipowner and banker of Philadelphia.” Born near Bordeaux, in 1750, of obscure parents, he, at the age of ten or twelve years, embarked as a cabin boy, with only a very limited knowledge of the elements of reading and writing, on a vessel bound for the West Indies. Thence he sailed in the service of an American shipmaster, to whom he had engaged himself, as an apprentice, for New York. He soon rose to be mate and master, and, after making a little money, he opened a small store in Philadelphia, and also carried on a shipping business with New Orleans and St. Domingo. At the latter place a tragical circumstance occurred strongly illustrative of the troubles of the time, but which contributed materially to swell Girard’s fortune. It chanced that at the moment of the insurrection of St. Domingo, Girard had two vessels lying near the wharf in one of the ports of that island. On the sudden outbreak, the planters, instinctively rushed to the harbour and deposited their most valuable treasures in the ships then there for the purpose of safety; but returned themselves in order to collect more property. As the greater part of them were massacred, few remained to claim the property, and as a large portion of it had been deposited in Girard’s vessels, for which no claims were made, he thus became its owner. In 1791 he commenced building a class of beautiful ships, long the pride of Philadelphia, for the trade with Calcutta and China—their names,