Who is this person?

[L Verge]

The way you capitalized and quoted "Commerce," made me think that I might know at least the basics of this. It appears that it refers to a ship. That was a pretty common name for trade ships in the early years, but there was one history that ended in tragedy, and the captain and crew were used as slaves in the Sahara. I think the captain was named Riley??? I remember this because I once saw a list of books that Lincoln supposedly read and commented on, and the book written by the captain was one of them.