Yet the bright lad who entered by way of the forecastle also played for high stakes.

Soon promoted to the berth of mate, he was granted cargo space for his own adventures in merchandise and a share of the profits.
In these days the youth of twenty-one is likely to be a college undergraduate, rated too callow and unfit to be intrusted with the smallest business responsibilities and tolerantly regarded as unable to take care of himself.

It provokes both a smile and a glow of pride, therefore, to recall those seasoned striplings and what they did.
No unusual instance was that of Nathaniel Silsbee, later United States Senator from Massachusetts, who took command of the new ship Benjamin in the year 1792, laden with a costly cargo from Salem for the Cape of Good Hope and India, "with such instructions," says he, "as left the management of the voyage very much to my own discretion.

Neither myself nor the chief mate, Mr.Charles Derby, had attained the age of twenty-one years when we left home.

I was not then twenty." This reminded him to speak of his own family.