It was fought within easy eyesight of Gibraltar, and therefore in British waters; but no effort was made by the British men-of-war--always plentiful there--to maintain the neutrality of the port.

For sailors to be robbed or murdered, or to fight with desperation to avert robbery and murder, was then only a commonplace of the sea.

Men from the safety of the adjoining shore only looked on in calm curiosity, as nowadays men look on indifferently to see the powerful freebooter of the not less troubled business sea rob, impoverish, and perhaps drive down to untimely death others who only ask to be permitted to make their little voyages unvexed by corsairs.
From a little book of memoirs of Captain Richard J.Cleveland, the curious observer can learn what it was to belong to a seafaring family in the golden days of American shipping.

His was a Salem stock.

His father, in 1756, when but sixteen years old, was captured by a British press-gang in the streets of Boston, and served for years in the British navy.