for rescue at sea; later still he established the famous Collins Line. Hallett, of Barnstable, who died in 1849, was a pioneer in this coasting trade, and also as a saver of souls: for he raised the first Bethel flag for seamen’s worship in New York and in Boston. He was a “professor” from his twentieth year, and was said to be “singularly gifted in prayer and exhortation.” In 1808 he built the Ten Sisters, the most noted packet for years running between New York and Boston. Rider, of Truro, who combined with seafaring the trade of carpenter, went West in 1837, and built “the first boat to navigate the Illinois River by mule power,” and afterwards built other famous river boats. A Barnstable captain transported Mark Twain on the first leg of his “Innocents Abroad” expedition; another was master of the beautiful Gravina, named from the admiral in command of the Spanish reserves at Trafalgar, which on her maiden voyage, New York to Shanghai, took out some of Bishop Boone’s missionaries. A Brewster man made a fortune by establishing a stage-line to the Australian gold-fields. It was natural that, in 1849, the Cape Cod men should be among the first to start for California; and it is interesting, also, that the majority of them, at least, in time returned to their life at sea. A Barnstable captain, Harris, who had received a medal from the Admiralty for saving a British crew in the North Sea, sailed, with his son, for San Francisco, where their brig was abandoned at the water-front and was used as an eating-house. Captain Harris, in due course, returned to Barnstable, and became sheriff of the county. There is testimony that he was “always young in spirit: it was a pleasure to see him dance, for he showed us more fancy steps and more of the old ways of dancing than we had ever seen.” Cape sailors were more apt to man the clippers than hunt for gold. A Hyannis captain remembered that an owner once said to him when he was looking for a berth: “The new clipper ship Spit-fire is lading for San Francisco and the cap’n’s a driver. He wants a mate can jump over the fore-yard every morning before breakfast.” “I’m his man,” retorted the seaman, “if it’s laid on the deck.” He shipped forthwith, and had a passage of one hundred and two days to San Francisco. A group of eight Brewster men and four from Boston combined seamanship and gold-hunting by buying a brig of a hundred and twenty tons and manning it themselves. They elected their officers, the rest of the owners going as common sailors. “We were all square-rig sailors except Ben Crocker,” writes one of the “seamen,” “and he was made cap’n of the main boom, as the square-rig sailors were afraid of it.” The cook worked his passage out, and there were six passengers; all ate together in the cabin. In a hundred and forty-seven days they made San Francisco, where they sold the brig for half what she cost them, and “each man took his own course.” There is no record that any of them made a fortune.