As there was no naval academy, he adopted the usual course of
having the boy serve a year on a merchant vessel. After this
apprenticeship, Cooper entered the navy as a midshipman. From such
experiences he gained sufficient knowledge of the ocean and ships to enable
him to become the author of some of our best tales of the sea. He resigned
from the navy, however, in 1811, when he married.
BECOMES AN AUTHOR.--Cooper had reached the age of thirty without even
attempting to write a book. In 1820 he remarked one day to his wife that he
thought he could write a better novel than the one which he was then
reading to her. She immediately challenged him to try, and he promptly
wrote the novel called _Precaution_. He chose to have this deal with
English life because the critics of his time considered American subjects
commonplace and uninteresting. As he knew nothing of English life at first
hand, he naturally could not make the pages of _Precaution_ vivid with
touches of local color.
This book was soon forgotten, and Cooper might never have written another,
had not some sensible friends insisted that it was his patriotic duty to
make American subjects fashionable.
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