the British. He and the rest of the crew were held as prisoners of war for three months in New York City before being released. Cuffe returned to his family in what is now Westport, Massachusetts. In 1779, he and his brother David borrowed a small sailboat to reach the nearby islands. Although his brother was afraid to sail in dangerous seas, Cuffe set forth, probably with a friend as crew in 1779 to deliver cargo to Nantucket. He was waylaid by pirates on this and several subsequent voyages. Finally, he made a trip to Nantucket that turned a profit. He reportedly continued to make these trips to Nantucket throughout the war. In 1780, at the age of 21, Paul and his brother John Cuffe refused to pay taxes because free blacks did not have the right to vote in Massachusetts. In 1780, they petitioned the council of Bristol County, Massachusetts, to end such taxation without representation, which had been an issue of colonists that led many to the Revolution. The petition was denied, but his suit contributed to the state legislature decision in 1783 to grant voting rights to all free male citizens of the state. After the war ended, Cuffe entered into a partnership with his brother-in-law, Michael Wainer, to build ships and establish a shipping business along the Atlantic Coast. He gradually built up capital and expanded to a fleet of ships. After using open boats, he commissioned the 14- or 15-ton closed-deck ship Box Iron, and then an 18- to 20-ton schooner. In 1789 he and Wainer set up their own shipyard on the east bank of the Acoaxet River, in the new town of Westport which had been carved from Old Dartmouth. He continued to build ships for the next 25 years. Paul's sister Mary had married Michael Wainer in 1772; they had seven sons together between 1773 and 1793. Many as men became crew members and even captains on ships owned by their father and uncle. Jeremiah Wainer and his two sons (Cuffe's great-nephews) were lost at sea in 1804 when one of the family ships went down. Marriage and family On February 25, 1783, Cuffe married the widow Alice Abel Pequit. Like Cuffe's mother, Alice was a Wampanoag woman. The couple settled first in an "Indian-style" house near Destruction Brook in Dartmouth and later in Westport, Massachusetts, where they raised their seven children: