great world, and gathered the knowledge of human nature that enabled him to portray in such grim reality the hidden springs of human thought and action. These captains were the sons of gentlemen, and were as a class the best educated men of their time in the United States, for they could do more important and difficult things, and do them well, than the men of any other profession. The old East India Museum at Salem is a monument to their taste and refinement. Nowhere else, perhaps, can be found another little museum as unique and beautiful, of treasures brought home one by one from distant lands and seas by the hands that gave them.
Boston, too, had her ships and seamen. From that port were sent out in 1788 the Columbia, a ship of two hundred and thirteen tons, and the sloop Washington, of ninety tons, commanded by Captains John Kendrick and Robert Gray, who took them round Cape Horn to the northwest coast of America, and then after trading for cargoes of furs, went across to China. The Columbia returned to Boston by way of the Cape of Good Hope, and was the first vessel to carry the United States ensign round the globe. Subsequently she discovered the majestic river that bears her name, and so won the great Northwest for the flag under which she sailed. The Massachusetts, of six hundred tons, the largest merchant vessel built in America up to her time, was launched at Quincy in 1789 and was owned in Boston. She sailed for Canton and was sold there to the Danish East India Company for $65,000.
