“Seventy Men Could Not Keep Her Free”

Extract

In the days when New England lived on and through the sea, it was no unusual event for one of her tiny vessels to return home, after having spent three or four years knocking round the world, with its cost paid for and in its hold a cargo bought with a portion of its freight money. The modern imagination is struck with the tale of riches but is apt to relegate to the sphere of romance the chance stories of hardship and adventure that have come down.