When America, in these first years of the twentieth century, makes an invoice of her resources, she counts first her great prairies of the Mississippi basin, her rich mines of the Alleghanies and Rockies, and her wealth of manufactories and their products. In 1775 her assets were of a different sort. America then was a mere strip of seacoast, cut into a series of peninsulas by the lower courses of a number of navigable rivers. Her interests and her wealth then were much more largely maritime than now. Attention has already been directed to the wide pursuit of commerce, shipbuilding, fishing, and whaling in New England. It remains, to be said that in the Middle and Southern colonies commerce and shipbuilding were important industries. During the Revolution Virginia put more naval ships afloat than any other colony. In the colonial period communication between the towns of the colonies was best by water. The inhabitants of America, during this period, were amphibious. They have lost this quality, for their character is now fixed by the “West,” and not by the Atlantic seaboard. In 1775 America had, relatively, many more seamen than in 1898. In the light of these facts it seems somewhat singular that the Revolutionary navy was forced to spend most of its days in port, vainly trying to enlist seamen for its depleted crews. To be sure the lack of sufficient armament, naval stores, and provisions was felt, but it was the lack of sailors that constituted the chief obstacle to the success of the Continental navy. Those vessels that finally weighed anchor were wanting as a rule in this prime naval requisite. The same causes that prevented seamen from enlisting lowered the quality of those that did enlist, and kept them from entering for longer than a single cruise. A ship’s complement of sailors was often ill-assorted. Seamen were improvised from landsmen; captured British seamen were coaxed into service; and for one cause or another many nationalities at times shipped side by side. These conditions made for insubordination, and even mutiny. On one occasion seventy or eighty British sailors, who were enlisted on board the Continental frigate “Alliance,” bound for France, planned to mutiny and carry the frigate into an English port. In order to obtain seamen many measures were resorted to by Congress, the states, the Marine Committee, Navy Boards, and commanders of vessels. Premiums for importing seamen were given to foreigners;[185] wages were advanced to recruits;[186] attempts were made to place embargoes upon privateers;[187] bounties were paid to seamen enlisting for a year;[188] inducements were offered to those captured from the enemy to get them to enter the American service;[189] some seamen were impressed; glowing advertisements were inserted in the public prints;[190] and broadsides, which cleverly recited the many advantages of the Continental service, were displayed in sundry taverns.[191]