An interesting view of the seafaring people of New England in the seventeenth century is found in the autobiography of the Rev. John Barnard, who served Marblehead well, beginning in 1714. He says that upon his arrival in the place "there was not so much as one proper carpenter nor mason nor tailor nor butcher in the town. The people contented themselves to be the slaves that digged in the mines [figuratively speaking] and left the merchants of Boston, Salem and Europe to carry away the gains; by which means the town was always in dismally poor circumstances, involved in debt to the merchants more than they were worth; ... and they were generally as rude, swearing, drunken and fighting a crew as they were poor. "I soon saw that the town had a price in its hands, and it was a pity they had not a heart to improve it. I therefore laid myself out to get acquainted with the English masters of vessels that I might by them be let into the mystery of the _fish trade_; and in a little time I gained a pretty thorough understanding of it. When I saw the advantages of it I thought it my duty to stir up my people ... that they might reap the benefit of it.... But alas! I could inspire no man with courage and resolution enough to engage in it, till I met with Mr. Joseph Swet, a young man of strick justice, great industry, enterprising genius, quick apprehension and firm resolution, but of small fortune. To him I opened myself fully, laid the scheme clearly before him, and he hearkened unto me.... He first sent a small cargo to Barbadoes. "He soon found he increased his stock, built vessels and sent the fish to Europe, and prospered in the trade.... The more promising young men of the town soon followed his example," and "now, [1766] we have between thirty and forty ships, brigs, snows and topsail schooners engaged in foreign trade." Moreover (and it is an important matter in that it shows one influence of shipping in that day), foreign trade had improved the manners of the people. "We have many gentlemanlike and polite families." [Illustration: Captain Kidd's House at Pearl and Hanover Streets, New York, 1691 Copyright, 1900, by Title Guarantee and Trust Company] One finds in the documents many glimpses and not a few detailed stories of life in what may be called the ordinary trades of the American merchant marine during the eighteenth century. Here, for example, are some extracts from a diary kept by a Salem youth, who had recently graduated from Harvard and was making a voyage to Gibraltar with Captain Richard Derby, in 1759. The diary is to be found in the possession of the East India Marine Society of Salem:-- "Nov. 12.--Saw a sail standing to the S. W. I am stationed at the aftermost gun and its opposite with Captain Clifford. We fired a shot at her and she hoisted Dutch colors.