He was a merchant mariner, a master at the outbreak of the Revolution, who had followed the sea since boyhood.

But it was more to his taste to command the Salem ship General Pickering of 180 tons which was fitted out under a letter of marque in the spring of 1780.

She carried fourteen six-pounders and forty-five men and boys, nothing very formidable, when Captain Haraden sailed for Bilbao with a cargo of sugar.

During the voyage, before his crew had been hammered into shape, he beat off a British privateer of twenty guns and safely tacked into the Bay of Biscay.
There he sighted another hostile privateer, the Golden Eagle, larger than his own ship.

Instead of shifting his course to avoid her, Haraden clapped on sail and steered alongside after nightfall, roaring through his trumpet: "What ship is this?
An American frigate, sir.