Captain Palmer stood fully six feet, and was a man of great physical strength and endurance. He was an active member of the Currituck Club, and at the age of seventy-six, on his annual cruise to the Thimble Islands for duck shooting, few of the party of much younger men held so steady a gun, or could endure the fatigue and exposure for which he seemed to care nothing. Though rugged in appearance, his roughness was all on the outside; his heart was filled with kindness and sympathy for the joys and sorrows of others. His brother, Captain Alexander Palmer, a seaman only less famous than himself, once said: “My home is here in Stonington, but Nat’s home is the world.” Captain Palmer was deeply though not vainly religious, and was long a warden of Calvary Episcopal Church at Stonington. In 1876 he accompanied his nephew, Nathaniel B. Palmer, his brother Alexander’s eldest son, who was in feeble health, to Santa Barbara, but as the invalid derived no benefit there, they went for the sea voyage to China on board the clipper ship _Mary Whitridge_. At Hong-kong, Captain Palmer received an ovation, for, while few of his old friends there were still alive, those who were left had good memories. On the return voyage to San Francisco on the steamship _City of Pekin_, Captain Palmer’s nephew died when the vessel was but one day out. This was a terrible blow to Captain Palmer, from which he never recovered. On arriving at San Francisco he was confined to his bed, and although he received every care, he died there on June 21, 1877, in his seventy-eighth year. At the close of a glorious summer day, the remains of the devoted uncle and nephew were laid at rest in the churchyard at Stonington, by the hands of those who had known and loved them well. Captain Palmer was a fine type of the American merchant seaman of that period, and I have thought it worth while to trace the leading events of his life, because he always seemed to me to be the father of American clipper-ship captains. Probably no one ever brought up so many young men who afterward became successful shipmasters, while his character and example were an inspiration to many who never sailed with him. It is indicative of the broad and far-reaching sympathies of Captain Palmer’s life, that not only a part of the Antarctic Continent bears his name--an enduring monument to his memory--but that A. A. Low & Brother named one of their finest clipper ships, the _N. B. Palmer_, and the famous schooner-yacht _Palmer_, owned for many years by Rutherfurd Stuyvesant, was also named for him. Few men in private life have had part of a continent, a clipper ship, and yacht named for them. CHAPTER VI THE REPEAL OF THE BRITISH NAVIGATION LAWS--THE “ORIENTAL”