with everything else at sea, private ventures were based upon the vessel's hierarchy. Aboard the Dolphin in 1764 the master received 110 bushels, the mate 46 bushels, three men 36 bushels, and one man 27 bushels as their privilege.95 Sometimes a ship's officers had the right to a portion of the cargo space and the crew would not.96 This privilege could be so lucrative that although it was possible for the captain's monthly wage to be lower than the mate's and even the crew's, he could become wealthy and, if he were lucky and well connected, a merchant in his own right.97 The greater the captain's investment of in the voyage, however, the greater was his responsibility for the commercial aspect of the voyage. Similarly, the private venture for the common seaman benefited both the merchant and sailor by cementing everyone's interest in the successful outcome of the enterprise.
The same principle of shared risk and shared profit underwrote most fishing and whaling voyages as well. Throughout this period fishermen were not paid a daily wage; instead they obtained a percentage of the catch. Fishermen in the 1790s in Marblehead, for example, signed written contracts binding them to a specific crew during the season. The owner of the vessel would be given two to two and a half shares. The captain would get only a little more than a full share. A shoreman who dried and processed the fish would get a full share, and the remainder of the eight shares would be divided among the crew based on the amount of fish caught by each individual. Apprentices in the five- to six-man crew might get a half share or nothing at all, except knowledge of the business for future voyages.98
Whaling articles also divided the haul into shares, only they were much more elaborate, with a wide range of shares given out based upon previous experience and job category. Each rank or rating would be given a different lay, or share of the money earned from the whales caught. Aboard the whaleship Columbia on a voyage from 1846 to 1850, the first mate signed for a 1/28 lay, second mate 1/40, third mate 1/60, two coopers for 1/70 each, two steersmen and an assistant cooper for 1/75 each, another steersmen for 1/80, the cook for 1/120, the steward for 1/130, two seamen for 1/140, another seaman for 1/150, and seven seamen for 1/160.99 In the late eighteenth century, the lays for seamen would have been larger. The whaling industry changed between 1750 to 1850; voyages stretched from a few months to several years, and the pay and working conditions declined.100
Privateers operated similarly. In fact, the lucrative opportunities in times of war drew men into this service. Aboard the privateer sloop Comet during the Revolutionary War, the captain received five shares, the first lieutenant three shares, the second lieutenant, gunner, boatswain, and steward two shares each, the armorer one and one half shares, seventeen crew members one share each, and two boys one half share each. This could add up to significant money. One prize—a captured ship—could bring in £30,000. Half the money would go to the owners, the rest would be divided among the crew.101 The Yankee privateer during the War of 1812 made seven successful voyages out of Bristol, Rhode Island. On the first, which lasted three months, each share paid $700, while the second voyage netted $338.40 a share.102
Naval vessels also offered prize money in addition to a basic wage that was often minimal. In the eighteenth century the British navy paid twenty-four shillings per month for an able seaman. The Continental navy did not offer much more during the Revolutionary War. By the nineteenth century, the American navy paid about two dollars a month less than the merchant service. The prize money, however, could add up to hundreds of additional dollars. During the Quasi War with France, Elijah Shaw, who served as a ship carpenter on the frigate Constellation, earned $320 in prize money in addition to $300 in wages.103
Shaw's earnings, at a time when a common laborer received a dollar a day, might seem like a small fortune. Somehow, few seamen ever seemed to get much ahead. A sailor had to work a month before he caught up with the advance paid on his signing the articles, and that money was usually quickly placed in the hands of a boardinghouse keeper. Expenses frequently ate away at earnings. After almost fourteen months at sea, Amos Towne was worse off than when he started the voyage. Between advances he received after he first signed on, and at various ports in Europe and the East Indies, as well as charges for clothes, tobacco, and board while ashore, Towne had to sign unto another vessel owned by John Carrington shortly after he returned to Providence in 1824 to erase the debt that he had accumulated while working on the ship Franklin.104 Whalers and privateers too had previous commitments for the lays and shares. The typical earnings of the crew of the whaler Gratitude was $269.37 for a two-and-a-half-year voyage. Almost every man who earned this amount, however, was actually paid less than $100 because of advances and debts incurred before departure.105 On some voyages the deductions stripped the sailor of almost all his earnings. Three years after exclaiming that he liked “whaling very well” and “the best of anything I have ever tried,” James Webb reported to his mother that “I made nothing by the voyage—the owners claimed all when I got home.”106 Privateers might sell their shares, or a portion thereof, before they even left port.107 Men in the navy also spent advances, incurred debts, or, like Shaw with his earnings, invested their small wealth poorly. On the positive side, payment of the sailor's wage had first priority if a shipowner went bankrupt and a few men managed to use their money to start life anew on shore.108
Not every sailor conformed to the stereotype by drinking, cursing, carousing, fighting, misbehaving, and spending to excess while on leave. Sailors with strong shoreside attachment were often more careful with their money. Some went to sea only to build up a bankroll that could be used to establish themselves in an occupation on shore. During wartime, men expected and sometimes achieved quick rewards through privateering. In peacetime the process took longer. Whaling offered an opportunity to accumulate capital. A successful whaling cruise in the nineteenth century might last two or three years, while the sailor's lay—his share in the profits—could amount to a small fortune of several hundred dollars. Even aboard regular merchant vessels, wages could add up if properly managed and saved. Amos Towne may have ended a fourteen-month cruise in debt to the shipowner, but others on the same voyage were paid seventy or eighty dollars in cash as they signed off.109 Many men also hoped to make their careers at sea. Captains and other officers aboard ship came largely from the ranks of common sailors; at sea, knowledge and ability counted above all else.110
Who were the men who served as sailors and labored on the waterfront? Answering the questions is no easy task. During the period covered by this study there were many changes in English-speaking North America. A set of British colonies confined to trade with the West Indies and Europe, became an independent nation whose ships plied every ocean and whose seaman visited countless foreign ports. The dimensions of this huge workforce are staggering. Estimates of the number of colonial Americans working as seamen are hard to derive; English and American trade were so intertwined as to make distinctions almost impossible to detail. Thousands of seamen came in and out of colonial ports before the Revolutionary War. Naval warfare and privateers brought many more men to seek their fortunes at sea. Tens of thousands of men fought on the ocean waves from 1775 to 1783. In 1791 Thomas Jefferson estimated that there were also 20,000 men employed as merchant sailors or as fishermen.111 That number increased dramatically in the expansion of trade that began in the 1790s. By 1818, a group of merchants and captains seeking to establish a mariners' church estimated that 15,000 to 16,000 seamen sailed through the port of New York each year.112 The Board of Directors of the Boston Seamen's Friend Society reported 103,000 seamen in the United States in 1835.113 By 1850 there may have been well over 100,000 American seamen and countless others laboring along the docks.
The first and perhaps the most important characteristic of this workforce was its diversity. Men of many nationalities could be found on the waterfront. Perhaps there was less variety before 1776 because of legal limitations on crew nationality dictated by the Navigation Acts. The seamen who offered depositions before His Majesty's Vice Admiralty Court in New York were born in England, Ireland, Scotland, the Channel Islands, Germany, and Scandinavia.114 After independence, and as the American merchant marine expanded, the international mix became more pronounced. Many of the privateers
