"No," replied the captain, "I shall stick to Mr. Gibbons till he is
through his troubles."
That was the reason why he remained so long in the service of Mr.
Gibbons.
After this war was over, the genius of Captain Vanderbilt had full
play, and he conducted the line with so much energy and good sense,
that it yielded an annual profit of forty thousand dollars. Gibbons
offered to raise his salary to five thousand dollars a year, but he
declined the offer. An acquaintance once asked him why he refused a
compensation that was so manifestly just.
"I did it on principle," was his reply. "The other captains had but
one thousand, and they were already jealous enough of me. Besides, I
never cared for money. All I ever have cared for was to carry my
point."
A little incident of these years he has sometimes related to his
children. In the cold January of 1820, the ship Elizabeth--the first
ship ever sent to Africa by the Colonization Society--lay at the foot
of Rector Street, with the negroes all on board, frozen in. For many
days, her crew, aided by the crew of the frigate Siam, her convoy, had
been cutting away at the ice; but, as more ice formed at night than
could be removed by day, the prospect of getting to sea was
unpromising.
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