he bought a vessel which he commanded himself, and he personally made sundry voyages to Europe and the West Indies. By 1791 he had amassed a large fortune. There was no further need of his going to sea; he was now a great merchant and could pay others to take charge of his ships. These increased to such an extent that he built in Salem and owned eighty-three ships which he freighted and dispatched to every known part of the world. Seven thousand seamen were in his employ. His vessels were known in Calcutta, Canton, Sumatra, St. Petersburg and dozens of other ports. They came back with cargoes which were distributed by coasting vessels among the various American ports. It was with wonderment that his contemporaries spoke of his paying an aggregate of about $200,000 in State, county and city taxes in Salem, where he lived.3 He died on Jan. 5, 1844, aged 84 years.
Asa Clapp, who at his death in 1848, at the age of 85 years, was credited with being the richest man in Maine,4 began his career during the Revolution as an officer on a privateer. After the war he commanded various trading vessels, and in 1796 established a shipping business of his own, with headquarters at Portland. His vessels traded with Europe, the East and West Indies and South America. In his later years he went into banking. Of the size of his fortune we are left in ignorance.
A GLANCE AT OTHER SHIPPING FORTUNES.
These are instances of rich men whose original capital came from privateering, which was recognized as a legitimate method of reprisal. As to the inception of the fortunes of other prominent capitalists of the period, few details are extant in the cases of most of them. Of the antecedents and life of Thomas Russell, a Boston shipper, who died in 1796, "supposedly leaving the largest amount of property which up to that time had been accumulated in New England," little is known. The extent of his fortune cannot be learned. Russell was one of the first, after the Revolution, to engage in trade with Russia, and drove many a hard