ports. This was the beginning of a large and flourishing trade with the Far East.
Stephen Girard, who was born near Bordeaux in 1750,—and who had advanced from cabin-boy to captain,—having settled in Philadelphia, built in 1791 four beautiful ships for the East India and China trade; the Helvetia, Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Voltaire. They were long the pride of Philadelphia, and greatly enriched their owner.
A portrait of the ship Harriet of Georgetown,—here given,—done by Groenewegen at Amsterdam in the year 1793, may be taken as a type of the early American merchant ship.
American history abounds in records of the exploits of the sloops of that period, and these able single-masted vessels navigated every sea and ocean on the globe.
In 1783 a Hingham sloop of 40 tons, commanded by Captain Hallet, sailed from Boston for China, laden with a cargo of ginseng root. It was the custom in those days for vessels bound to and from India and China, to call in at the Cape of Good Hope for wood, water, and fresh provisions. Hallet, accordingly, arriving at the Cape, found there a fleet of English East Indiamen, homeward bound. The captains all combined and offered him two pounds of hyson tea for every pound of ginseng root. Hallet at once accepted their offer, and sailed for Boston, where he arrived in due course, the voyage turning out a very profitable one for the owners of the little sloop.
The first vessel to make the direct voyage to
