But while the politicians wrangled over the chaotic conglomeration that, at the time, was called the general government, the business men made haste to retrieve the losses brought upon them by the war, and as there had been but two sources of income worth mention before the war--the commerce of the seas and agriculture--it was to them that the energies of the people were applied. It was an along-shore nation. The salt air fanned its most populous cities. So familiar were the people with the ocean, that every one spoke of the time when he should be rich as “when my ship comes home.” So to the sea went hosts of people seeking fortune. The merchant with his capital, the land-owner with his timber, and the mechanic with his skill and muscle, united to build and man ships for the ocean-carrying trade, and so well did they work together that ships the equal of any other, in some cases the superior of any in the world, were sent down the ways. Men who had learned to be aggressive while afloat with the flag in war-time were placed in command of these ships, and the contest for supremacy in trade, which had had so great a part in bringing on the Revolutionary war, was renewed with an energy and an independence of action of which the people as colonists had not dreamed. Even so small a craft as an Albany sloop was sailed away from New York for Canton, China. She had only a page-map from a school geography for a chart of the world, but she made her port and made home again, and she was the first sail to make the direct passage from New York to China waters. The British merchants with dismay saw their own ships passed by and the Yankees chosen by shippers of cargoes--chosen because both safer and swifter. And when the British merchant complained, he found (as he has always found) his government ready to listen and to act in his behalf. What that government was willing to do to aid the British merchants was so discreditable that the story of it well-nigh staggers belief, although the proofs are, in fact, beyond doubt. On the Mediterranean coast of Africa were found a number of small Mohammedan states ruled by vassals of the Turk. For time out of mind these petty rulers had levied a blackmail tribute from every seafaring nation that traded in the Mediterranean Sea, and even sailed in their cruisers out upon the Atlantic to capture ships that were not intending to enter the enclosed waters. When one recalls how much superior the power of England was to that of all these pirates combined, it seems astounding that even she should have contributed to the blackmail, but the reason for her doing so may be found in the debates of Parliament of that day. Said Lord Sheffield in 1784: [Illustration: A Mediterranean Corsair Anchoring. _From a picture drawn and engraved by Baugean._]