In the olden days the business was transacted along the wharves on Thames Street. That street was crowded with drays loaded with the products of every land, while sailors of all nations lounged about the water front. Today a sailor is a rare sight. The commerce has vanished and not a vessel of any size hails from the port. Even the pronunciation of the name of the street by the water has been changed and most of the dwellers upon that thoroughfare do not know that they are living upon the “Tems” street of our fathers. By day even in summer the streets of the town are almost empty, except for the visitors, and half the people are at work in the factories. But there is immense life in the place yet. The population is increasing by leaps and bounds and the wealth per capita is increasing in the same way. When the great mill wheels cease to turn, a hurrying throng of operatives crowds the highways. Although they are now for the most part alien in speech and thought, their children, born in the old colonial port, will grow up imbued with the spirit of the place and will be Americans, Americans without the hyphen. The old seafaring spirit still exists, though mightily transformed. No longer do Bristol sails whiten far distant seas, no longer do the argosies bring into the harbor the products of India, the silks of China and Japan. From the port today go forth vessels of a very different type. They lack the capacious holds of the olden days but they carry sails larger than any the old captains ever dreamed of. Their business is not to carry merchandise; they sail forth from Narragansett Bay to lead the yachting fleets of the world. PART I SIMEON POTTER AND THE PRINCE CHARLES OF LORRAINE 1--SIMEON POTTER Most famous among the names of the old sea captains of Bristol is that of Simeon Potter. For almost half a century Potter was the most conspicuous figure in the town in which he was born. He was also one of the influential men in the Colony and State of Rhode Island for a large part of that time. Simeon Potter was born in Bristol in the year 1720. His father was not a man of fortune and the boy’s education was almost entirely neglected. His letters, even in advanced age, are those of an illiterate man who, apparently, had never attempted to remedy the deficiencies of his youth. Perhaps this is not to be wondered at. He went forth from Bristol an humble sailor lad whose only possessions were a sound body and an imperious will. After a comparatively few years spent upon the ocean he returned to his native town with a purse overflowing with riches, a man to be looked up to for the rest of his life.