Captain Kidd's Gold - Hardcover

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. CHANGES AND A FAILURE. HE CAUSE of my father's retiring from the active pursuit of sea-faring was not any dissatisfaction with the life or the calling. He was, as his son has since become, a seaman. He loved his ship with an affection which I suppose no landsman can understand, and he never felt really and truly at home away from salt water. But the active and toilsome life that he had led on the seas had begun to tell on him, and he had to acknowledge that the time had come when he must take, as he expressed it, "along shore-leave." Besides this, he had always felt the effects of a wound in the head from the pike of a British seaman on that terrible night of the combat betweea the Serapis and the Bon Homme Richard, when he was helping the commodore repel boarders. This old wound troubled him more than ever as his years advanced, and really made his retirement necessary. His savings were all expended in building his house at Newburyport; but his thorough knowledge of ships and their building and fitting made him a desirable man to have about the ship-yards. For some years after his marriage?to'be exact, I will say till May 31, 1811?he had profitable employment, which he liked, in superintending the building, launching and fitting of ships, and he and his little family lived comfortably and happily. A kinder father aad husband never lived. Though he never seemed very willing to talk to me about his adventurous life, he would answer my questions, and sometimes when they related to his service with the commodore, he would get his enthusiasm aroused, and would stir my young blood with some story of sea combat. Then my mother would always come in with her remonstrance. "Now, really, husband, I wish you would not get Paul excited about such things. He he...

Fitss was born in Lockport, New York. His father, a teacher, gave James most of his education. James' interest in literature led to his first publication at the age of eighteen. He later commenced the practice of law and became a member of the Nagara County bar in 1860. In 1861, Fitts entered the Civil War as a private in the 10th New York Calvary. He was promoted to the rank of Captain in 1863. He mustered out with his regiment on June 1865, having been wounded on June 1864. He returned to Lockport and became a partner in the law firm of Holmes and Fitts. He continued his writing as a journalist and a writer of fiction.