Thereafter the story became more and more one of American ships and less of American sailors, excepting on the quarter-deck.
In later years the Yankee crews were to be found in the ports where the old customs survived, the long trading voyage, the community of interest in cabin and forecastle, all friends and neighbors together, with opportunities for profit and advancement.

Such an instance was that of the Salem ship George, built at Salem in 1814 and owned by the great merchant, Joseph Peabody.

For twenty-two years she sailed in the East India trade, making twenty-one round voyages, with an astonishing regularity which would be creditable for a modern cargo tramp.

Her sailors were native-born, seldom more than twenty-one years old, and most of them were studying navigation.

Forty-five of them became shipmasters, twenty of them chief mates, and six second mates.