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THE PILOT

A Tale of the Sea



By J. Fenimore Cooper




TO

WILLIAM BRANFORD SHUBRICK, ESQ.,

U. S. NAVY.


MY DEAR SHUBRICK,


Each year brings some new and melancholy chasm in what is now the brief
list of my naval friends and former associates. War, disease, and the
casualties of a hazardous profession have made fearful inroads in the
limited number; while the places of the dead are supplied by names that
to me are those of strangers. With the consequences of these sad changes
before me, I cherish the recollection of those with whom I once lived
in close familiarity with peculiar interest, and feel a triumph in their
growing reputations, that is but little short of their own honest pride.

But neither time nor separation has shaken our intimacy: and I know that
in dedicating to you this volume, I tell you nothing new, when I add
that it is a tribute paid to an enduring friendship, by

Your old Messmate,

THE AUTHOR.


      *       *       *       *       *




PREFACE.


It is probable a true history of human events would show that a far
larger proportion of our acts are the results of sudden impulses and
accident, than of that reason of which we so much boast. However true,
or false, this opinion may be in more important matters, it is certainly
and strictly correct as relates to the conception and execution of this
book.

The Pilot was published in 1823. This was not long after the appearance
of "The PIRATE," a work which, it is hardly necessary to remind the
reader, has a direct connection with the sea. In a conversation with a
friend, a man of polished taste and extensive reading, the authorship of
the Scottish novels came under discussion. The claims of Sir Walter were
a little distrusted, on account of the peculiar and minute information
that the romances were then very generally thought to display. The
Pirate was cited as a very marked instance of this universal knowledge,
and it was wondered where a man of Scott's habits and associations could
have become so familiar with the sea. The writer had frequently observed
that there was much looseness in this universal knowledge, and that the
secret of its success was to be traced to the power of creating that
_resemblance_, which is so remarkably exhibited in those world-renowned
fictions, rather than to any very accurate information on the part of
their author. It would have been hypercritical to object to the Pirate,
that it was not strictly nautical, or true in its details; but, when the
reverse was urged as a proof of what, considering the character of other
portions of the work, would have been most extraordinary attainments,
it was a sort of provocation to dispute the seamanship of the Pirate, a
quality to which the book has certainly very little just pretension. The
result of this conversation was a sudden determination to produce a work
which, if it had no other merit, might present truer pictures of the
ocean and ships than any that are to be found in the Pirate. To this
unpremeditated decision, purely an impulse, is not only the Pilot due,
but a tolerably numerous school of nautical romances that have succeeded
it.

The author had many misgivings concerning the success of the
undertaking, after he had made some progress in the work; the opinions
of his different friends being anything but encouraging. One would
declare that the sea could not be made interesting; that it was tame,
monotonous, and without any other movement than unpleasant storms, and
that, for his part, the less he got of it the better. The women very
generally protested that such a book would have the odor of bilge
water, and that it would give them the _maladie de mer_. Not a single
individual among all those who discussed the merits of the project,
within