This is a book about the American sailing packet ships the businessmen who conceived them and made or lost fortunes on them, the captains and searnen who drove them through on schedule, and the buoyant spirit of pre-Civil War America which made possible the first real steps toward reliable, cornfortable sea travel since the time of Columbus. It is an account of how the American merchant marine, paced by the passenger liners, in the first half of the 19th Century climaxed two centuries of unparalleled progress with a prodigious burst of speed, to overtake and by-pass the greatest sea powers in history. What the ordinary American of the time "thought of it; how he accounted for it, or whether he thought of it at all, we have no means of knowing. On the whole, it is probable that he accepted it with stodgy complacence as the natural result of superior ability and energy. The American of today, however, who has small reason for complacency and none at all for accepting explanations based on national or racial superiority, may find it worthwhile to probe deeper into the matter. It is possible that an achievement ranking as one af the most noteworthy of alI time, involved moral and intellectual forces nations can ill afford to neglect." The men behind this achievement-the merchants, commanders, and builders, by and large, "were not especially great and good men, after the commonly accepted standards of greatness and goodness. Most of them had in ampIe measure the faults and weaknesses of humanity, but they Ieft a record of achievement that has never been excelled, if, indeed, it has ever been equalled." "If the writer were to attempt to explain that paradox in a word, he would say that, for reasons to be set forth, it was because in any conflict of interest, it was instinctive with them to put service above profit. In a most trenchant aspect, the story of the first two American centuries is the story of what a small leaven of such men can mean to a land and a people."