'With due admiration for the knowledge of professional detail, I feel that enthusiasm will overcome the want of acquintance' ... such was the conviction of the strong young man who lived and wrote this account of his days in the  American merchant service before the sail-less, spar-less days of engine driven hulks, when the sea brewed a witchery seasoned with hardships, and the great ships that dipped into Neptune's briny cup, quaffed the gall of drudgery.