Stories of the Cape Cod captains would in themselves make a volume. One is tempted here and tempted there in choosing which should be typical of the “brave old times,” and fears to overlook the most significant. Among the more interesting of those who have not been already mentioned was Elijah Cobb, born in 1768 at Brewster—the home of deep-water sailors. From the memoir which he began to write in old age, we know that his first voyage, presumably as cabin boy, netted him the profit of a new suit of clothes and in money twenty dollars which he brought home intact to his mother, “the largest sum she had received since she became a widow.” By the time he was twenty-five he had made several voyages as captain, had married him a wife, and a year or two later was to run afoul of the French Revolution. As both French and English men-of-war were making no bones of holding up neutrals, he had cleared for Corunna: to no end, for he was taken by a French frigate and run into the harbor of Brest. “My vessel was there,” he writes, “but her cargo was taken out and was daily made into soup, bread, etc., for the half-starved populace, and without papers”—his captors had sent his papers to the Government at Paris—“I could not substantiate my claim to the ship.” He appealed to Paris, and had the cold comfort of hearing that “the Government will do what is right in time.” In the meantime he was treated courteously, and he and some of his men lodged at a hotel at the Government’s expense. After six weeks the word came that his case had been passed upon: “without my even learning or knowing I was on trial. The decision, however, was so favorable that it gave new feelings to my life.” A fair price was offered for the cargo of flour and rice which Brest had already devoured; payment in bills of exchange on Hamburg, fifty days after date. Cobb sent his ship away in ballast, and set out for Paris to get his papers and his bills of exchange. [Illustration: THE CAP’N’S]