Of them ‘that go down to the sea in ships’ Saint-Malo, assuredly, has never had any lack. For the last five hundred years she has been the home of a sea-faring people; adventurers, discoverers, privateers—sometimes little better than pirates—she numbers them in plenty among her citizens, as we have good and convincing cause to remember. For it must be frankly confessed that not only did they dispute with us the freedom of the seas, but at one time it was not we who always had the best of the argument. In fact, to be honest, we suffered very considerably at the hands of these free-lances; and it is a surprising thing to remember that these men raised the little rock-city of their birth to be a power in France, and a danger to England. When the size of Saint-Malo is taken into consideration, this is a rather remarkable achievement.

Only a few of their names are familiar to us, though many more are preserved in the annals of the little town on the Brittany coast; and perhaps it is worth while to recall something of what is known of them. Commanding their own ships while they were yet boys (Duguay-Trouin was only sixteen); growing incredibly rich and piling up adventures as other lads steal apples; something more than a guild—almost a family, closely interlinked by marriage and descent; merchants sending out their own ships to trade as well as to fight, fighters manning their own ships to defend their trade—to read the story of their exploits is like turning over the pages of a fairy tale.