The Rat that ate the Malt

Weel, 'twas but a step back from the twin flowering of gorgeous Mississippi River side-wheeler steamboats, and lovely, impossible clipper ships in the 1850's, to the justly and curiously named "Baltimore clippers"--and rumors of American blockade-running in the War of 1812--and Lo! The whole incredible, true, wholly improbable and utterly factual history of American smuggling and privateering--and the consequent superiority of American ship-building and navigational and ship-sailing skills--came tumbling out of the Closet of History like an avalanche, stunning, thunder-striking, and overwhelming me. ¿Who knew?

I checked out of the library last night and swiftly read Privateers of '76 by Fred J. Cooke--and I have more books on order, which will take me from the Revolution through the War of 1812 in the history of American privateering (sailing and ship-building)....