The condition of American commerce, after the promulgation of the French decree, became deplorable indeed. A merchant-vessel flying the American flag was never safe unless under the guns of an American war-vessel; and the reduction of the navy had made these few indeed. Should the brig "Nancy" or "Sarah Jane" put out from the little port of Salem or New London, she was certain to be overhauled by some British frigate, whose boarding officer would pick from the brig's crew a few able sailors, and leave her to make her way short-handed as best she might. Next would come along some French frigate or privateer,--some "Terreur," "Incroyable," or "Insurgente,"--whose astute officers would quickly notice the gaps in the American crew, and, finding out that the brig had been boarded by the English, would declare her a prize for having given aid to the enemies of _la belle France_. Should the little brig be so fortunate as to escape the civilized belligerents, there were still the pirates of Tripoli, the picaroons of the French West Indies, and the unauthorized and irresponsible pirates, who, with forged commissions and flying the Spanish or Portuguese colors, ravaged the seas in all directions. The career of an American merchantman at that time is admirably told by our great novelist Fenimore Cooper in his sea-tale of "Miles Wallingford." The fate of the good brig "Dawn" was the fate of too many an American vessel in those turbulent times; and the wondrous literary art with which the novelist has expanded the meagre records of the times into an historical novel of surpassing interest makes an acquaintance with the book essential to a proper knowledge of American naval history.