Custom House, Salem 100 Elias Hasket Derby 108 An Early Type of Clipper Ship: _Maria_, of New Bedford, built 1782 122 A Virginia Pilot-boat, with a Distant View of Cape Henry, at the Entrance of the Chesapeake 148 Engines of the _Clermont_ 158 Clipper Ship _Syren_ 220 Captain Samuel Samuels 222 Clipper Ship _Witch of the Wave_ 232 Sailing of _Britannia_, February 3, 1844 254 Four-master _Dirigo_, First Steel Ship built in the United States 298 Seven-masted Schooner _Thomas Lawson_ 312 A Modern Clipper Ship and a Modern Brig 318 Cunard S. S. _Lusitania_ 334 THE STORY OF THE MERCHANT MARINE CHAPTER I IN THE BEGINNING The first vessel built within the limits of the United States for commercial uses was a sea-going pinnace of thirty tons named the _Virginia_. Her keel was laid at the mouth of the Kennebec River, in Maine, on an unnamed day in the fall of 1607. The story of this vessel, though brief, is of great interest because, in part, of certain peculiarities of rig and hull which, in connection with a sea-going vessel, now seem astounding, but chiefly because it portrays something of the character of the men who, a little later, laid the foundations of the American Republic. The adventure which led to the building of the _Virginia_ grew out of that wonderful harvest of the sea, the cod fishery on the banks of Newfoundland. For more than a hundred years before she was built many fishermen of Europe had been sailing to the Banks in early spring and returning home each fall. Throughout the sixteenth century there were from 100 to 300 fishing vessels there every year, excepting only those years when wars raged the hardest. In 1577, for instance, as the records show, 350 vessels sailed for the Banks, gathered their harvest, went ashore in the bay where St. John, Newfoundland, now stands, cured the catch on flakes built on the beach, and then sailed for home well satisfied.