She had been brought in by a French privateer and Delano was moved to remark, with an indignation which was much in advance of his times: "Privateering is entirely at variance with the first principle of honorable warfare....

This system of licensed robbery enables a wicked and mercenary man to insult and injure even neutral friends on the ocean; and when he meets an honest sailor who may have all his earnings on board his ship but who carries an enemy's flag, he plunders him of every cent and leaves him the poor consolation that it is done according to law....

When the Malay subjects of Abba Thule cut down the cocoanut trees of an enemy, in the spirit of private revenge, he asked them why they acted in opposition to the principles on which they knew he always made and conducted a war.

They answered, and let the reason make us humble, 'The English do so.'" In his grand East Indiaman young Captain Delano traded on the coast of India but soon came to grief.

The enterprise had been too large for him to swing with what cash and credit he could muster, and the ship was sold from under him to pay her debts.