LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. dljap. §optfrig§i Ifn* Shelf .Ji^.fcU UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. ,*H' V HOMEWARD BOUND FROM THE Chesapeake to the Mersey IJST THE SCHOONER YACHT "NATHALIE," 200 TONS. CLEW GARNET, ESCL In the Summer of 1881. BY 11 O. HAUGH' Baltimore: ^ ^Q/wash i^ DOWLING & CO., Printers and Binders^ No. 166 West Baltimore Street. 1882, Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1882, by H. O. HAUGHTON, In the Office of the librarian of Congress, at Washington, T). C. < h X ui o: t O u UI 0. U) o a: < a THE BRITISH ENSIGN is composed of a white, blue or red field with the THE UNION JACK. Until the reign of King James the First, of England, who had been James the Sixth, of Scotland, and son of the unhappy Mary, Queen of Scots, THE SAINT GEORGE'S CROSS, Red upon white ground had been the flag of England. On the 12th of April, 1606 THE SAINT ANDREW'S CROSS of Scotland, white diagonal upon blue ground was merged with it, and the blending of the two and THE SAINT PATRICK'S CROSS, of Ireland, also a diagonal, of red upon white ground, effected after the Union, on the 1st of January,. 1801, completed the group of Christian symbols that has since been the national emblem of England and her dependencies. The name " Union Jack," is presumed to have been adopted from "Jacques" or " Jacobus," in commemora- tion of the reign during which the junction was first conceived and determined. THE AMERICAN ENSIGN. It is difficult to trace the origin of the American flag, as voluminous writers who have made it their special purpose, appear to have failed to produce anything but conjecture, supported by more or less probability. It is certain that General Washington carried the striped field with the English Jack as then composed of the St. George's and St. Andrew's Crosses. The thirteen stars and thirteen stripes were adopted by Congress, January 14th, 1777. It is reasonable to presume that the field was suggested by its fac simile in use in the British Navy as a signal for the Red Division to draw into line of battle ; the blue ground of the Jack from the British ; substituting the stars for the crosses, which were objectionable to the Puritan sentiment of the time. PREFACE. " Scribimus indocti doctique." — Horace. The Author, if the word be not presumptuous, a lover of "the blue, the fresh, the ever free," and familiar with its eccentricities in its frowns, as well as its smiles, has occupied a period of enforced leisure in grouping without experience, with but indifferent capabilities, and untutored imagination, the commonplace incidents so far as they emanate from him, in this little log. He transcribes the satirical truism from one whose writings are immortal, as an excuse for dressing it in type to meet the public. "Nature never did betray The heart that loved her." — Wordsworth. And I have loved thee, Ocean ! and my joy Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be Borne, like thy bubbles, onward : from a boy I wantoiTd with thy breakers, — they to me Were a delight ; and if the freshning sea — Made them a terror — 'twas a pleasing fear, For I was as it were a child of thee, And trusted to thy billows far and near, And laid my hand upon thy mane — as I do here. — "Childe Harold." A taste for yachting is an acquired one and capable of very extended culture. The yachtsman may be said to belong to a race of superior beings, whose faculties have an unbounded range, instead of a certain limited patch of earth — the entire globe is his domain. His freedom is not the freedom of a city, but a planet, and the most refined and educated man can only be enobled by its attainment. — Brett. INTRODUCTION. Part of the first Patent granted by His Majestie [James the First,] for the Plantation of Virginia, April 10th, 1606. " Whereas, our loving and well disposed subjects, Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Somers, Knights, Richard Hak- luyt, clerke, Prebendary of Westminster, Edward Maria Wingfield, Thomas Hannam, Rawleigh Gilbert, Esquires, William Parker, George Popham and divers others of our loving subjects have been humble suitors unto us that we would vouchsafe unto them our Licence to make habitation, Plantation, and to deduce a Colonie of Sundrie of our People into that part of America commonly called Virginia," &c , &c. On Saturday, the twentieth of December, in the yeare 1606, the fleet* fell from London, and the fift of January anchored in the Downes. * * By unprosperous Winds we were kept six weeks in sight of England. We watered at Canaries; we traded with the Saluagesat Dominica, three •" Susan Constant," Captain Newport, of 100 tons, 71 passengers. 11 God Speed," Captain Gosnold, of 40 tons, 52 passengers. 11 Discovery," Captain Radcliffe, of 20 tons, 21 passengers. 8 Homeward Bound, weeks we spent in refreshing ourselves amongst the West India Islands. In Guardalupa we found a bath so hot as in it we Boyled Porck as well as over the fire, and at a little He called Moneca. we tooke from the bushes with our hands neare two hogsheads full of birds in three or four houres. In Mevis, Mona and the Virgin Islands we Spent some time, wherewith a lothsome beast like a crocodil, called a Gwayn, Tortoises, Pellicans, Parrots, and fishes we daily feasted * * "The tenth day [of April] we fet faile and desimboged out of the West Indies and bare our courfe Northerly. The fourteenth day we paffed the Tropicke of Cancer, the one and twentieth day, about fiue o'clocke at night there began a vehement tempest which lafted all the night with windf, raine, and thunderf in a terrible manner. Wee were forced to lie at Hull, (*. e. under bare poles) that night becaufe we thought wee had bene nearer land than wee were. " The next morning being the two and twentieth day, we founded, and the three and twentieth, and foure and twenti- eth day, but we could find no ground. The fiue and twenti- eth day we founded and had no ground at an hundred fathom. The fix and twentieth day of Aprill, about foure o'clocke in the morning, wee descried the land of Virginia, the same day wee entered into the Bay of Chesupioc directly without any let or hindrance, there wee landed and dis- couered a little way, but wee could find nothing worth the fpeaking of but faire meddowes and goodly tall Trees From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. 9 with fuch frefh waters running through the woods as I was almost ravished at the first sight thereof. "At night when wee were going aboard, there carne the sauages creeping vpon all foure from the Hills like Beares, with their Bowes in their mouthes, charged vs very desper- ately in the faces, hurt Captain Gabril Archer, in both his hands, and a fayler in two places of the body, very dangerous. After they had spent their arrowes, and felt the sharpneff of our shot, they retired into the Woods with a great noise, and so left us. The seuen and twentieth day we began to build vp our shallop. The gentlemen and foldiers marched eight miles vp into the land, we could not see a sauage in all that march. We came to a place where they had made a great fire, and had beene newly a rofting oysters \ when they perceived our comming they fled away to the mountains, and left many of the oysters in the fire ; we eat some of the oysters which were very large and delicate in taste. * * When it grew to be toward night we stood back to our ships, we sounded and found it shallow water for a great way, which put vs out of all hopes for getting any higher with our ships which road at the mouth of the Riuer. We rowed over to a point of land where wee found a chan- nel], and founded six, eight, ten or twelve fathom, which put vs in good comfort. Therefore wee named that point of land Cape Com fort j\ * * tNow Old Point Comfort. 10 Homeward Bound, « The nine and twentieth day we fet up a Croffe at Chesu- pioc Bay, and named that place Cape Henry. "The thirteenth day [of May], we came to our feating place in Paspihas Country, where our shippes do lie so near the shoare that they are moored to the Trees in six fathom water. " The Riuer which wee haue discouered is one of the famof- fest Riuers that euer was found by any Christian. It ebbes and flowes a hundred and threescore miles, where shipps of great burden may harbour in faftie. * * As for fturgeon all the World cannot be compared to it. " They resolved upon a Peninsula, upon the north side of the River Powhatan, forty miles from the mouthy which they named Jamestown, in honor of King James the First, then reigning in England. " * * "The company was not a little discomforted seeing the mariners had three days passed their reckonings and found no land, so that Captaine Radcliffe rather desired to beare up the helme to return for England than make further search. " But God, the giver of all good actions, forcing them by an extreme storme to hull all night, did drive them by His Providence to their desired Port beyond all their expecta- tions, for never any of them had seen that coast. The first land they made they called Cape Henry.' ' From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. 1 1 CHESUPIOC BAY. " The north Cape is called Cape Charles, in honour of the Worthy Duke of York, [afterwards King Charles the First, of England, and brother of Prince Henry, in whose honour Cape Henry was called. ]" u The lies before it are called Smith's lies ; because he firft of ourf fet foot on them. ' ' Within is a Countrey that may have the prerogative ouer the moft pleafant placef of Europe, Afia, Africa, or America, for large and pleafant nauigable Riuers. Heauen and Earth never agreed better to frame a place for manf habitation, being of our Conftitutionf, were it fully mannured and inhabited by induftriouf people. Here are Mountaynes, Plaines, Vallies, Riuers and Brookes, all running most pleaf- antly into a faire Bay, Compaffed but for the mouth with fruit- ful and delightfome land. In the Bay and Riuers are many lies both great and fmall, fome woodie, fome plaine, moft of them low and not inhabited. < ' This Bay lieth north and fouth, in which the water floweth neare two hundred milef, and hath a channel for one hundred and fortie milef, of a depth betwixt seuen and fifteene fadom, holding in breadth for the moft part ten or fourteene miles. " From the head of the bay at the north, the land is moun- tainous, and so in a manner from thence by a fouthweft 12 Homeward Bound, line, so that the more fouthward the farther off from the Bay are thofe mountainef. From which fall certaine Brookes, which after come to fiue, large, principall naui- gable Riuers. These runne from the northweft into the south eaft, and fo into the weft fide of the Bay where the fall of euery Riuer, if within twentie or fifteene milef one of another. The countrie is not mountainouf, nor yet low, but fuch pleafant plainef, Hills and fertile Vallief, one prettily croffing another and watered so conveniently with their fweet Brookes and Criftall fprings as if art itfelf had diuifed them. By the Riuers are many plaine mariihef contayning fome twentie, fome one hundred acref, fome more, fome less, other plaines there are few, but only where the sauages inhabit : but all overgrowne with Trees and Weeds being a plaine wilderneff as God firft made it." dl^lSL&l^.iTA" "■'— 1';\ HOMEWARD BOUND. * tl Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito." — ^Eneid. FOR the American and Englishman alike, the Chesa- peake Bay abounds in historic richness. For the former, inasmuch as it is the birthplace of his nation, and for the latter in that it was he who bore the burden and heat of those days that dawned upon the early struggles and ultimate achievement of the first English speaking settlement upon the Continent. For him who, disburdened of sentiment, may accept the glory of the conquest, it affords additional interest as the . scene of the surrender of the possession conferred by dis- covery and colonization, with the sword of Lord Cornwallis upon the field of Yorktown. In a brisk walk of a couple of hours, the cradle and the tomb of Old England's souvrainty * Yield not thou to adversity but rather press onward the more bravely. 14 Homeward Bound, may be visited, a pilgrimage that, if made but in a dream, must provoke more than a passing emotion from him who, bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh, has made himself familiar with the occurrences of scarce less than two inter- vening centuries. Five expeditions and as many reliefs and searches had spent their energies and resources in unsuccessful attempts to found a settlement at Roanoke Island, in Albemarle Sound. One had been actually annihilated without leav- ing a trace of its dissolution. But in those days the spirit of adventure was superior to the wisdom with which its ends were sought to be accomplished. The chivalry, the heroism, were forthcoming, as they have ever been where the Briton is concerned, but the substance was not chosen, nor were supplies provided with a view to combat success- fully the rough exigencies of primeval settlement. Out of one hundred and five immigrants in the first contingent, but twelve were tillers of the soil, and forty-eight were gen- tlemen unused to as they were unfitted for physical labour. "I entreat you" wrote the ruling spirit of the suffering colony of Jamestown, " rather send but thirty carpenters, husbandmen, gardeners, fishermen, blacksmiths, masons, and diggers up of trees' roots well provided, than a thousand such as we have ; for except we be able to both lodge and feed them, the most will consume with want of necessaries before they can be made good for anything. " From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. lO When Captain Newport, who commanded the little fleet, left upon his return homeward, " there were never English- men left in a Forreigne countrie in such miserie as wee were in this new discouered Virginia." The young province had to graduate in the school of affliction. The early longings for gold, which it was presumed would be forthcoming in virgin purity, had to be tempered into conviction, that there as elsewhere it was only to be acquired by toil, and the lesson once committed to heart the prospects of the settler brightened. The alternative attraction, the discovery of a short route to India, also failing them, the disappointments with the concomitant sufferings, chilled the spirit of endurance, while it nursed the demon of despair. Within a short time but forty of the colonists remained alive, and of these scarce ten were in a condition to meet the stern duties imposed upon them by untoward circumstances. At a later period in the ill- fortunes of the colony, out of five hundred left by Captain John Smith when he returned to England, but sixty or thereabouts survived within a twelvemonth to support a wretched and intolerable existence. Once, indeed, the settlement was actually abandoned. "None dropped a tear, for none had enjoyed one day of happiness." But the famished and despairing remnant was fortunately arrested at the mouth of the river by the fleet of Lord De la Warre, who had opportunely arrived with an accession of unwearied 1 6 Homeward Bound, enthusiasm and wholesome supplies, and the colony became reanimated and encouraged. " Our drink was unwhole- some water, our lodgings castles in the air. Had we been as free from all sins as from gluttony and drunkenness, we might have been canonized as saints," complained these poor undisciplined sufferers. Lord Baltimore's immigrants, for the settlement of Maryland arriving in the "Ark " and the ." Dove " at the mouth of the Potomac in 1634, were much better provided, owing to the experience gained by him as proprietor of Avalon, in Newfoundland, which he had abondoned for the balmier regions of the Chesapeake. Specially rent and harrassed as was the period the noxious weed of religious intolerance was not transplanted to the Virginia and Maryland colonies to take root and lux- uriate in their virgin soil and wither the blossoms of their dawn. Neither had the tyranny and bitterness that pervaded the New England regime any inheritance in the Chesapeake. The dominant and supplanted communions lived side by side without evincing a melancholy interest in the eternal perdition each of the other. In the proprietory of Lord Baltimore, himself a convert from the Church of England to the Church of Rome, the possibility of occurrences likely to mar the rights or the harmonies of Christians was pro- vided against by legal enactment. In the Jamestown settlement religious freedom seems only to have been suspended in the non-admission of Puritan From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. 17 missionaries. It was not, however, from any want of consideration for the spiritual welfare of the peculiar sect, but from the fact that their political zeal there, as elsewhere, was distasteful to a people who were the last to recognize the Commonwealth, the first to hail the Restoration. Had their exhortations partaken more of spiritual and less of temporal considerations, had they been about their Master's business, they would not have been unwelcome bearers of the Glad Tidings perhaps to others than those of their own household of faith. The Puritan was, however, a strange combina- tion of inconsistencies, a republican in temporal affairs, an autocrat in spiritual. Posing as a martyr in the cause of religious toleration, he held in his model Utopia that, u to say that men ought to have liberty of conscience is impious ignorance," and while fertile in opprobrious denunciations of Laud, he meted out with no less cruelty and oppression punishments such as the lash, expulsion from his Agapemone, and even death, as alternatives to submission to his intolerable and inhuman will. It was, it must be admitted, an age of inhumanity, and in this light must be weighed the acts of both Cavalier and Round- head. But there was a sweet unction in the perpetration of atrocities in the sacred name of religion, peculiar to this reckless sect. They shook from their feet the dust of loyalty to the land of their birth as its chalk cliffs faded from their sight, and became thenceforth the active and 18 Homeward Bound, successful instruments in the severance of the family con- nection between the Old World and the New. In the Old England, when the Long Parliament exacted from the King, by quite as questionable proceedings as he is, we believe with extravagant austerity unjustly accused of adopting toward his subjects, all that he could have been fairly expected to concede, consistent with prescription and regard for his successors, the Puritan was still unsatiated, his lawless caprice ran riot, goaded as he had been, much owing to his own indiscretions — into revenge he threw aside all semblance of right and justice, and, intoxicated with power, usurped with- out scruple, drowning conscience in spoliation and steeping his hands in murder and butchery. " He prostrated himself in the dust before his Maker : but he set his foot on the neck of his King." He arranged for himself which of the com- mandments it behoved him to regard and which to ignore, and yearned in the fellowship of that " Sacrament of blood by which they had bound themselves closely together, and separated themselves forever from the great body of their countrymen." How different the spirit and loyal reverence of the Chesapeake colonists. They objected strenuously, and no doubt fairly, to much in the political part reserved for them by the home government, a part, be it remembered, of no aristocratic origin, but forced upon Parliament by the tradesmen of the nation, jealous of the pretentions of their From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. 19 colonial opponents, not the least obnoxious of their fetters, forged by the Rump and the Protectorate, but they never assumed to be a separate people, and viewed with vehe- ment repugnance the levelling and cold-hearted doctrines of the Puritan. It required a long course of folly on the part of the Par- liament to estrange them from their attachment to "home," and to unite them in brotherhood with the cannie New Englander; and the daily prayer amidst all their sufferings was, " God bless England, our sweet native country." Neither did the majority of the colonies desire or dream of independence. They were driven by invincible necessity to fight for it ultimately, but they girt their loins and buckled on their swords with reluctance and many conscientious scruples, yielding with hesitation to the hard decree. The Virginia settlement " was established by a set of daring enthusiasts, and even chivalrous adventurers. The characters of the people were effected by that of their great leader." " The Puritan fleeing from oppression, withdrew himself from the communion of all churches but his own, and made his own will the paramount law." He was beyond doubt the better settler in an economic sense. He has made the barren rocks to blossom as the rose, while the Chesapeake Cashmere has, in a relative degree, scarce as yet cast her bread upon the waters. His class has 20 Homeward Bound, contributed largely to the wealth of England, but it is from the same stock mainly, and still the inconsistency is preserved, that the disturbing and visionary element is also derived. It is he who essays to pull down without method for substitution. He it is who is the iconoclast, reckless of the ruin in which ages may be involved. Had the "unprosperous" gale that drove the "May Flower," destined for the fertile plains of the Hudson, to the bleakest of coasts, been in an opposite mood, in what a hive of industry should we now be labourers, How the spindles would jingle upon the water privileges so profusely ornamenting our streams and rivers, as they wander to- ward the tides of the bay. If the Pilgrim could make the worst wilderness bear, Think, think what a hive he would make of it here. With many apologies to the shades of "Moore." Our purpose scarce warrants the following these settle- ments as their stability expanded and as their fortunes rose. Every circumstance attending their struggles and ultimate successes is replete with interest as their history with episode. Nor is romance absent from their picturesque and sylvan sur- roundings. As the flaxen haired, blue -eyed beauty of Rowena laid its spell upon Vortigern while handing him the brim- ming goblet with "thy health, dear King," and their subse- quent marriage sloped the way to the Saxon inundation of the From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. 21 land of the Briton, so was the marriage of Pocahontas, the favorite daughter of the chief Powhatan, with the settler Rolfe the means of soothing the Indian into resignation to the foothold the white man had secured in his dominions. "They hurt you not," said he, in reply to the suspicious murmurings of his subjects, "they take but a little waste land," and Rowena "dear King, they are my people, be favorable to them as you loved that Saxon girl who gave you the golden goblet of wine at the feast." u What lost a world and bade a hero fly ? The timid tear in Cleopatra's eye. Yet be the soft triumvir's fault forgiven ; By this — how many lose not earth — but Heaven ? " The Appomatocks were delighted with the bond of union, the Chickahominies demanded to be styled Englishmen. "The young Princess received instructions with docility, and soon in the little Church of Jamestown, which rested on rough pine columns fresh from the forest, she stood before the font that out of the trunk of a tree had been hewn hollow like a canoe, openly renounced her country's idolatry, professed the faith of Jesus Christ, and was baptized." And shortly after, in the same little rustic church, which was kept daily adorned with the wild flowers that graced the neighbourhood, " she stammered at the altar her marriage 22 Homeward Bound, vows." Her care for the settlements while a mere girl, her heroic and successful effort in saving the life of Captain John Smith, her marriage, the birth of her son, her visit to England and reception at Court, her womanly and discreet, not to say refined behaviour, and her untimely death as she re-embarked at Gravesend to return to Virginia, are more than twice-told tales in American households. Many Virginia families with laudable pride claim descent from this romantic attachment, this " childe of tenne yeares old, which not only for feature, countenance and proportion much exceedeth any of the rest of his people, but for wit and spirit the only nonpareil of his country." Her granddaughter became the wife of a Captain Robert Boiling, and his daughter in her turn of Richard Randolph, grandfather of John Randolph, of Roanoke, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Flemings, Gays, Eldridges, Murrays, and others born of the " Old Dominion/' are said to inherit the blood of the Indian beauty and of Pow- hatan, the great chief of the many tribes, whom Warner describes, we think, with more prejudice than justice to Captain Smith as " an able and crafty savage — but he was no match for the crafty Smith, nor the double dealings of the Christians." Such we fear is still the embarrassment of the poor, cheated, friendless and despised Indian race. When invited to visit the settlement of Jamestown to receive presents from King James, the answer of Powhatan From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. 23 was characteristic of savage majesty : "If your King has sent me presents, I also am a King, and this is my land. Eight days will I stay to receive them. Your father is to come to me, not I to him, neither will I bite at such a bait." Importations of the gentle sex, the embryo mothers of the nation, are recorded. Sixty arrived upon one invoice — " young, handsome and well recommended for their virtuous education and demeanour. With them was sent over the several recommendations and testimonials of their behaviour that the purchasers might thence be enabled to judge how to chuse. The price of these wives was stated at 120 pounds of tobacco, and afterwards advanced to 150 pounds." Grants of land were given not alone to the planters, but as well to their wives, " because in a new settlement it is not known whether men or women be most necessary." In an older settlement the question was solved in these words, "It is not good that man should be alone." " For contemplation he and valour formed, For softness she and sweet attractive grace, He for God only — she for God in him." The spirit of Sir Walter Raleigh hovers over these historic scenes. " The soldier, the sailor, the scholar, the courtier, the orator, the poet, the historian, the philosopher, whom we picture to ourselves sometimes reviewing the Queen's guard, sometimes giving chase to a Spanish galleon, then answering the chiefs of the country party in the House 24 Homeward Bound, of Commons, then again murmuring one of his sweet love songs too near the ears of her Highness's maids of honour, and soon after poring over the Talmud or collating Polybius with Livy." Mr. Bancroft, the picturesque historian of his country, thus sounds the praises of this illustrious Englishman : " The name of Raleigh stands highest among the statesmen of England, who advanced the colonization of the United States, courage which was never daunted, mild self-possession and fertility of invention insured him glory in his profession of arms. * * * No soldier in retirement ever expressed the charms of tranquil leisure more beautifully than Raleigh, whose sweet verse Spencer described ' sprinkled with nectar,' and ' rivalling the melodies of the summer nightingale.' He united in himself as many kinds of glory as were ever combined in an individual." "His good friend, Prince Henry, described him in his imprisonment tf a singing bird in a cage, rather a philosopher than a captive, a student in a library, than a prisoner in the Tower." A natural tender- ness of disposition frequently brought him into notice as a suppliant for others. When interceding on an occasion with the Queen(Elizabeth,)he approached her by say- ing he had a favor to ask. " When, Sir Walter," said she, « will you cease to be a beggar?" "When your gracious Majesty ceases to be a benefactor," he replied. In a wager with the Queen that he would determine exactly the weight From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. 25 of the smoke which escaped from a pipe of tobacco, he weighed the tobacco, then the ashes. The queen readily granted that what was wanting in the prime weight must have been evaporated in smoke. When she paid the wager, she said pleasantly that she heard of many labourers in the fire that turned their gold into smoke, but Raleigh was the first who had turned his smoke into gold. " Considering the despatch of such variety of engagements * * one must be forced to seek how a man of so many actions should write anything, and one of so many writings should do anything." His was the inspiration and loyalty of purpose defeated over and over again by difficulties insurmountable at length to triumph in the colonization of Virginia. " I shall yet see it an English nation," he predicted, and he did. It was he who kindled the spark of adventure that has illuminated the progress and still directs the destiny of the great American Nation — " His fame," says Bancroft, '" belongs to American history" — upon whom rests the obligation to shed what lustre dull cold marble can contribute to the memory of one who was its rising sun, if it be but to illumine the clouded though not inglorious setting of his own. f t A memorial window has recently been erected by Americans in St. Margaret's, Westminster, to which Mr. Lowell has supplied the following inscription : "The New World's sons from England's breast we drew Such milk as bids remember whence we came ; Proud of her past from which our present grew, The window we inscribe with Raleigh's name." 26 Homeward Bound, " I have not spared my labour, my poor estate and the hourly hazard of my life, but God has otherwise disposed of all, and now end the days of my hope." Before he reclined to lay his head upon the block, feel- ing the edge of the axe, said he, " it is a sharp remedy for all diseases." Being asked to accommodate his body to some more convenient posture, he replied, " what matters the body if the heart be right? 5 ' The executioner could not but hesitate in the performance of his office upon such a victim. "Strike, man, strike," said he, and in two blows he died an offering by a weak monarch to the extrav- agant pretensions of Spain, that too often had felt the fertile brain and mighty arm of the redoubtable though tender an^ gifted martyr. An humbler though not dissimilar spirit was Captain John Smith's, whose life was scarcely less free from adven- ture. Of him wrote a brother soldier of fortune — "I never knew a warrior yet but thee," From wine, tobacco, debts, dice, oaths more free. And yet another, "he would suffer want rather than borrow, and starve sooner than not pay." If Raleigh kindled, it was Captain John Smith that continued to supply the fuel. If the one was the founder, the other was the saviour of the settlement of Virginia at a critical period, at least, of its existence. From the Chesapeake to the Mersey, 27 "His deliberate enterprise and cheerful courage diffused light amongst the general gloom." And now we are descend- ing the Bay through every Creek and River connecte'd with which this indefatigable labourer and warrior had shoved his little three-ton shallop, and a map of which he completed as interesting at this day as when first published.' ' The hollow Oak, our palace is ; Our heritage the sea.— tl Cunningham." Should any unbeliever in the application of the text that introduces this chapter be disinclined to let go his top gallant halliards in acknowledgement of the Divine right of the Briton to the sovereignty of the seas, let him turn to the illuminated pages of history, should material considerations be more likely to direct his judgment than the heroic achieve- ments of bygone times, a few instances of which will be found in the appendix an incomparable navy may convince him of six hundred vessels, from which there are at present in commission two hundred and nine, measuring four hundred and ninety thousand tons, carrying fifteen hundred guns of heavy calibre, and manned by thirty thous- and men, ready for service. " Ubique, quo fas et gloria ducunt." Or the significant little red ensign of commerce flutter- ing wherever iron and timber can bear it upon the vexed surface of the ocean, or the repose of port and anchorage From the Cliesapeake to the Mersey. 29 decorating the peaks of no less than 41,348,984 tons of shipping in and out of the United Kingdom last year (1880,) irrespective of its missions in other directions, and supple- mented by 17,387,079 tons of foreign transporting merchandise, of the value of £697,650,000 or $3,488,250,- 000, the trade of the colonies being in addition £327,165,- 000 or $1,635,825,000. We can further call his attention to forty thousand fishing vessels, manned by 134,500 hardy and available seamen, meandering round the little invulnerable islands, and still we have for him a reserve of more than four thous- and vessels of a pleasure fleet, actually upon record, includ- ing five hundred steamers — a hundred owners in which have voluntarily passed the Board of Trade examination, and have been supplied with certificates of competency as masters — flitting about like the snowy sea-gulls around her cliffs and exhibiting the burgees of their clubs far in the frozen Arctic, the balmy tropics, East and West, North and South, wherever upon the watery globe adventure or caprice may allure them. The value of this contribution toward the defence of these little isolated but pretentious Isles may be estimated by a quotation from the historian Camden. "But so far was this invincible Armada from alarming the sea coasts that the English gentry of the younger sort entered them- selves volunteers, and leaving their friends and families did 30 Homeward Bound, with incredible cheerfulness hire ships at their own charge, and in pure love to their country, joined the grand fleet in vast numbers." And to a man of courage, who loves freedom of action and has the capability of conducting or the desire to acquire the skill necessary to enable him to direct her movements, there are few enjoyments the world can yield to be compared in intensity with the possession of a yacht of dimensions to supply as well the ordinary comfort of elbow-room as to remove as far as may be the possibility of accident, inseparable from occasions that will beset the wanderer upon the trackless ocean. Seconded he should be by a crew of thoroughly respectable well trained men, for in the confinement inalienable from the size beyond which she may become a care and a burden, any suspension of the "entente cordiale" must be inimical to the enjoyment, as incapacity either in direction or effective execution may be disastrous to the safety of all concerned. The superlative degree of pleasure can only be secured by perfection in appointments. The vessel herself should be unexceptionable in form and seaworthy qualifications, not incapable of winning a cup occasionally, though well designed to carry her spars through any freak of trial to which she may be ordinarily subjected in a lengthened cruise, and that with sufficient gallantry to relieve ladies From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. 31 from nervous apprehension ; for enjoyment unshared by those of one's household is poor compensation for the absence it may entail. The officers should be uniformed without excessive display in lace and buttons, and the men neatly and com- fortably accoutred for fair weather and foul, all actuated by the " noblesse oblige" of yachting servitude. It is as well the fittings be designed to afford the greatest comfort without unsuitable adornment. The steward's requisite- simple, and wanting in characteristics that would provoke regret should they be subjected to the peculiarly fatal eccens tricities of his department. Ornaments are admissable of a description that in their fitness can be made fast without depriving them of their mission or exposing them to damage. Stores may be selected with a regard to the usual economies of a household, not omitting innocent luxuries. A fairly though not of necessity curiously selected wine locker is desirable, providing that indispensable beverage for distribu- tion upon occasions of special hardship, or when it may be fitting acknowledgement of arduous duties gallantly performed, or indeed as a daily contribution to the comfort of poor Jack, who will be all the better man for it, and who will look with kindlier feelings upon the enjoyment of the cabin if his modest needs be suitably provided. The owner, in his department, holds the key to the situation. A due consideration for his officers and men, an 3 2 Homeward Bound, inexorable fidelity to the strictest discipline and faultless cleanliness, a system well-arranged in all its details for the daily work of the vessel, rigidly enforced, will secure all that may be desired. Jack soon takes the measure of his master, and. the degree of respect he entertains for him, and his service is estimated by the strictness and impartiality with which he is treated ; his training teaches him that the first is indispensable, and due consideration for his comfort insures his eternal friendship, and though humble it may be, there is none more sincere or more enjoyable in the every day routine of life afloat. Thus housed and thus caparisoned, oh, favored of the Gods ! go forth upon the bosom of the Ocean without fear and with a manly heart. Do not hesitate shivering upon the brink, laving your feet, as it were, in the delicious liquid, but hesitating to avail of the bliss awaiting you • the plunge once made, the apprehensions vanish • the swimming lesson once learnt will never be forgotten. Take with you those who are nearest and dearest, for without them your trem- bling pennant will be continually looking back to the isle of home you are leaving. Carry with you your "Lares et Penates" your "Aras et Focos" You will enlarge the hearts of the little ones to an extent that books can never accomplish, and your temper will not be as easily soured when you return to the haunts of anxiety. Milton says somewhere : From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. 33 11 Solitude is sometimes best society, And short retirement urges sweet return." A word as to the dangers to be encountered at sea. A hundred to two hundred ton schooner, well equipped and well handled, is the safest craft that can carry you. The earliest visitors to America ventured often in vessels of very small tonnage. Sir Humphrey Gilbert's " Squirrel " was of but ten tons — smaller than the life boat upon the decks of modern steamships. Gosnold and Pring's vessels, the " Discoverer " and k ' Speedwell/' were of twenty-six and fifty tons respectively; and the great navigator, Sir Martin Fro- bisher, commanded vessels of thirty and twenty-five tons. William Baffin discovered and explored the bay that bears his name, so well-known to Arctic wanderers in a craft of fifty tons. The " Speedwell," of the New England settlements was of sixty tons, and the " May Flower," a large vessel for her time, one hundred and eighty tons. Some of the fleet of Columbus were not even decked, and Captain Newport's fleet mentioned in our introduction was made up of three vessels, the " Susan Constant," one hundred tons, the i( God Speed," forty tons, and the " Discovery," twenty tons, and in these vessels one hundred and forty-four passengers and crew were transported. Half the accidents indigenous to the sailors life are due to the hurry-skurry of monster steamship steeple chasing. These huge leviathans, overgrown and frequently 34 Homeward Bound, ill designed, weighing with their cargoes thousands. of tons, are driven by thousands of horses power, sometimes it has been into each other, as often into ice, upon rocks or ashore, but more frequently into mountains of solid blue water which a schooner would bestride safely and comfortably when "hove to" with graceful motion and comparatively dry decks. In the modern trader, sea-worthiness of form is sacri- ficed to speed and carrying capacity, although every precau- tion is adopted she is driven through fog and uncertainty, and consequently danger, because you, it may be, gentle reader, will have it so, you will not take passage except it be by a steamer that will make a rapid trip, and owners will not provide and cannot afford to provide what is unprofitable even though it be perfect immunity from accident. The yacht is sailed upon other principles. When it is found to be dangerous or uncomfortable to urge her she is put to rest like a gull upon the stormiest water, and awakes refreshed when the gale is over and stretches her wings to pursue her wanderings. She never makes a mistake, is im- plicitly obedient to her commander, and unlike the horse and rider, accident through her agency is impossible, she is ready at all times, though feminine, to obey her lord and master, and to submit to his caprice uncomplainingly, and mistake, if mistake there be, is none of her doing. And ye, "one stranded gossamer" gentlemen come out from soundings and their revelries, throw away your From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. 35 faded flowers and come with us to gather fresh ones. Come across the Western ocean in the wake of the "Henrietta" and her gallant owner, who has done so much for yachting in this country. Sever the ties that bind you to earth for a short time and contemplate the sea and sky from the decks of your own vessels, taking the humours of old ocean as she may be pleased to receive your attentions. Fair laughs the morn and soft the zephyr blows. While proudly riding o'er the azure realm In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes, Youth on the prow and pleasure at the helm. — u Gray." MONDAY, JUNE 20TM, 1881. A twenty minutes drive brings us to the wharf where last adieux are to be spoken, on this occasion not unaccompanied by anxiety inseparably and involuntarily associated with the God-speed of affectionate relatives and friends for the safety of those about to engage in the not very common undertaking of a trip across the north Atlantic in their own schooner. The gig is at the wharf. The oars From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. 37 tossed. The bowman's boat hook the last fetter to be re- leased. « Good Bye ! " " God bless all ! " "Bon voyage ! " We step into the stern sheets. " Shove off ! " " Down oars ! " <« Give way ! " and in a few moments we have reached the gangway of our much loved " Nathalie " that with after can- vas set and anchor " short stay peak" lay like a fretful greyhound in the slip. Mr. Selwyn hands us the manropes, the steward stands by to take charge of small parcels, wraps, &c, the children previously despatched hail us with en- thusiasm enlivened by the novelty of the occasion. The gig comes handsomely aboard, Mr. Selwyn comes aft, touches his cap, reports " All ready, sir ! " and receives his orders to " Get under weigh ! " The yacht lay riding to a westerly wind. The windlass is manned, the pawls respond to the music of the fiddle, and as the anchor comes home up go jib and fore staysail which are sheeted to windward, there is a moments stern board, she moves handsomely round upon the starboard tack, the sheets are trimmed, and met with a lee helm, she steadies as she points to the Lazaretto. A last waive from every handkerchief, some moistened with tears, a parting gun, and at eleven o'clock A. M., we glide past Fort McHenry, and our voyage has begun. While running down the river we may as well describe the "Nathalie," as "Wanhill's " last and most perfect achieve- 38 Homeward Bound, ment. A schooner of two hundred tons, not altogether intended for racing, though ready to account for herself in this way should occasion arise, her spars are now however << razeed " to cruising proportions, and she sails under work- ing canvas, but her exquisite form can, at short notice, be fitted from her sail room with a suit of " Lapthorn," a glance at which would consign "Worth" to the despair of impotence. She is rigged as an English racing schooner, carries two square headed gaff topsails, and sports a yard for a flying foresail when favoring breezes gently blow. A running bowsprit of the " Hildegarde " type carries her head sails, she shows pure copper well up her bends, and a figure head an image of her mistress cunningly wrought in bronze, caressed by the laughing spray as it plays about the stem, while warbling in her ear its ceaseless melody, superintends initial progress. Her decks are now lumbered with a steam launch, a gig and a dinghey, and a spar to be fashioned as required, by the carpenters handicraft, is lashed there as well to provide for unpleasant contingencies in his department. In trim she is far from her best, the stores and water necessary for a possibly protracted voyage depressing her beyond her ordinary burden. Below her fittings are comfortable as we can make them, consistent with our ideas of the fitness of things, and our From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. 39 modest capabilities as to taste. Her ship's company as follows : — Clew Garnet, Esquire, Owner and Master. Mrs. Clew Garnet. Loulie, 15 years. Frank, 11 years. Maud, 9 years. Latimer, 6 years. Jack, 2 years. Doctor Thrale, M. R. C. S. I. Bella, Nurse. Katinka, Maid. WATCHES. LARBOARD . STARBOARD . Mr. Selwyn, Chief Mate, Mr. Jocelyn Second Mate, Fatman, Boatswain, Chips, Carpenter, Johnson, A. B. Ryan, A. B. Lind, " Harris, " Taylor, " McElwaine, " Wyatt, " Carey, " Coffee, " Herron. " Robinson, Steward. Bates, Second Steward. Barton, Cook. Smith, Cook's Mate. 40 Homeward Bound, The master maintains the most rigid discipline, both as to neatness of person and general routine, but the yoke is easy, owing not only to a rigorous selection and to that apprenticeship 'which yachtsmen undergo in the employ- ment of owners who will brook no laxity in demeanour, and whose ill -report would at once degrade an A. B. to the hard service of a trading vessel, but in the present case from no cringing timidity, but a respectable reverence for volun- tary servitude, a friendly feeling and thorough understanding engendered by long service, and the consciousness of many dangers shared and some victories achieved out of many hard fought encounters under the old racing flag of green and white. The owner holds a Board of Trade certificate of competency as master of fore-and-aft rigged vessels, and commands his own schooner. Since he passed his examina- tion, he has been playfully called " the Master " by his domestic circle, and the title will probably continue to be his until his log glass shall have run out forever. Mr. Selwyn has jockied many a flyer first by the flag- ship, and Mr. Jocelyn will, we have no doubt, in due time follow his example. The yacht sails under the burgee and ensign of the "Royal Western Yacht Club," of Ireland. As we approach Fort Carroll, the mammoth elevators of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad the most prominent objects left us of the city, fade gradually away, and the historic Fort McHenry over our taffrail yields to the no less From the Chesapeake to the Mersey, 41 renowned North Point, now opening under our lee. ' The prominent and casemated Fort Carroll resting in the fairway an unfinished example in granite of the discarded fortification of the past — marks seven miles from our point of departure. The Medusa-like beacon of the ■" Seven Foot Knoll," is the next object of interest upon our weather. The banks of the river, which is some miles wide, generally low but finely wooded, with now and then an elevated headland, and creek of peculiar beauty to break the continuity, present ever varying attractions. The Brewerton Buoy is reached shortly after noon, 13 f miles from our anchorage, and we have emerged from the Patapsco River and enter upon our descent of the Chesa- peake Bay, " the Mediterranean Sea of America," upon a course of about S. f W. Shortly after one o'clock the mouth of the Severn river is opened, and we peer* into its creeks through the trees to distinguish the stately "White Hall/' still the hospitable abode of the descendants of the Colonial Governors of Maryland, by whom we are proud to be recognized in acquaintance and kinship. Next the dome of the State House and the masts and spars of the training ships of the Naval Academy of Annapolis, the Capital of the State of Maryland, assert themselves upon the landscape. As we proceed reminiscences of the ever interesting original possessors of the surrounding territory are presented 42 Homeward Bound, to our imaginations. We pass between the hunting grounds of the Mannahoacks, Chickahamanias, Nansemunds, Chesupiacks, Pawmunkees, Paspaheghs, Payankatankes, Cattawomen, Patawomecks, Pawtuxunts, Kaskarawaoks, Accomacs, and many other tribes once governed by Werowances or deputies of greater chiefs, most of whom were under the sway of the great Powhatan, who ruled over eight thousand miles of inherited and suborned territory, and thirty tribes of two thousand four hundred warriors. We leave astern in the upper bay, the country of the Massawomecks, the Tokwoughs, and the mighty but gentle Susquesehannoughs. A race of giants were they of the long nomenclature. {i The picture of the greatest of them, the calfe of whose legge waf three-fourth f of a yarde about, and all the rest of his limbes fo answerable to that proportion that he formed the goodliest man that euer wee beheld, one had the head of a Wolfe hanging in a Chaine for a Jewell, his tobacco pipe three-quarters of a yarde long, prettily carved with a Bird or Beare, or a Deare sufficient to beat out the Braines of a man. Their language, it may well befeem, their proportions, sounding from them as it were a great voice in a vault or cave as an echo." The only vestiges remaining are echoes of their language. Thus we pass the rivers Tuckahoe, Nanticoke, Pocomoke, Pianka- tank, Occoquan, Potomac, &c, &c, and the Susquehannah we leave behind to the north of the Patapsco. From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. 43 Nor have features of the intermediate proprietors been obliterated. "Then shall our names, Familiar in their mouths as household words, Harry, the King, Bedford and Exeter, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Glo'ster, Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered." — H en ry V. We came down the river with the counties of Baltimore and Anne Arundel on either side. We proceed between Kent, Queen' Ann, Talbot, Dorchester, Somerset, North- ampton, Calvert, St. Mary's, Lancaster, Northumber- land, Middlesex, Matthews, Gloucester, York, Elizabeth, Norfolk and Princess Anne, and we make our exit between Cape Charles and Cape Henry, all redolent of a certain lingering attachment to old associations and aristocratic lineage. At 8.30 P. M., we pass Windmill Point on the north side of the entrance to the Rappahannock River. The south horn, [Stingray Point,] named from the Trygon which in that locality near put an end to the wander- ings of the obiquitous Captain Smith. Our passage down has been as a flight through flocks of pigeons, so innumerable are the white cotton sailed schooners and sloops, working their ways upward to the city with their ladings of the riches of the farmsteads that gladden the two thousand miles of foreshore of this grand sheet of water and its important 44 Homeward Bound, tributaries. These little vessels are splendidly handled, ex- cellent of purpose and fleet as arrows, and wide awake must be the commander and pilot of the lazy and cumbersome " Ocean Tramp " to direct her course in safety as she plods like a Triton among minnows up or down the placid waters. Here are decks awash under their rich green heaps of watermelons. There others bearing similar burdens of russet brown cantaloupes — still others filled with the bright amber wheats and yellow or pearly corn with deck loads in bags, all gorged from the overflowing cornucopias they have left behind them. As they reach upwards, the varied colours give them the appearance of chameleons in efforts to escape from some white-winged birds of prey. At 10 P. M., we are abreast of Cherrystone, famed for the flavour of its oysters, which have lain in widespread profusion beneath our keel since we entered the Chesapeake. Above us are the paths of the renowned canvas back duck as he flutters in his haste to the wild celery beds of the tributaries of the upper bay, while around us the tooth- some and much prized terrapin nourishes his uncomely form to tickle the palate of the epicure. The Doctor has been in his usual remarkable form all the way down ; at luncheon, a general laugh was occasioned to his chagrin. He asked the mistress, " What was the best jam known hereabouts?" One never can guess the answers he seeks, and as usual he supplied one, " Pot-home- From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. 45 make" — Potomac. He, however, received a Roland for his Oliver in that, " he would find upon consulting the cook that a galleypot would be much more in his way! " At 10.30, Cape Charles is abeam, and an hour later, 11.45 P. M., Cape Henry light bears S. S. E. \ E., distance three miles, whence- we jibe upon the port tack into our first ocean course N. 62° E., after a splendid run from the Lazaretto of 146J nautical miles by log, in twelve hours and forty-five minutes, or as near as possible, twelve knots per hour throughout. And now all is quiet below, rocked in the cradle of the deep, and lulled by the musical ripple of the water, as it passes astern within a few inches of their ears, the little ones quaff of tired nature's sweet restorer. On deck, scarce a sound has been heard above the sport of the sea, since the reeling of the log, and the report of the officer of the watch, of "twelve knots, sir, " greeted the ears of the master, as he lolled upon the transom inhaling from — That weed That looks so neat, And smell' st so sweet. *f " When all things were made, none was made better than Tobacco ; to be a lone man's Companion, a bachelor's Friend, a hungry man's Food, a sad man's Cordial, a wakeful man's Sleep, and a chilly man's Fire. There is no herb like it under the canopy of Heaven." f Rev. Charles Kingsley. 46 Homeward Bound, Reader, if such there be, have you ever shared with your horse the enjoyment he evinces when having left the road upon a hunting morning, he first feels the green turf beneath his feet and knows instinctively that it is to be a day of mutual bliss. Such enjoyment is ours, and such the spirit of our craft as she yields once again to the rolling surface of her native element through which she has to carry us during many a long day. She shakes the fresh water from her bends and with her second wind lays well down to her work, the first taste of the salt sea invigorating her with a vim for the voyage she now realizes has commenced in earnest. 1.50 A. M., Smith's Island shoals have gone astern upon our weather, and clear of the land are we. Loyal to the confidence reposed in him and in his judg- ment, by those of his household, the master remains on deck yet awhile, and glancing backward between the lights his thoughts wander to the scenes he has left behind, and years of labour chequered with many pleasant sentiments of memory. The genial kindliness of the men. The many charming attributes and unexcelled prettinessof the women, all the more indelibly impressed in a cheery hospitality, smiling like cultivated human flowers moved in the breeze of fashion by the hard trodden pathway of life. — Dear deluding woman, The jo)' of joys — From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. 47 The brightness of the city itself. The self-denying charitably disposed matrons quietly and unostentatiously contributing of their efforts, their time and their means to the necessities of their less fortunate sisterhood. The splendid munificence of its millionaires displayed in the many substantial bequests and presentations to be seen and felt broadcast throughout the city, adorning and enlivening it and its environs, distributing from the fountains of knowledge, gratifying and educating taste, consoling the afflicted, relieving the wretched, and wrestling with every conceivable ill that flesh is heir to, and reaching like u Pallida mors — pauperum tabemas, Regumque lurres." From the foot of the throne to the humblest of stations, the charms of the daughters of Maryland have penetrated to the fullest fruition of which natural attractiveness is capable, and one lt Queen rose of her rosebud garden of girls." came within the blighting influence of a soi-disant planet, who sought as Icarus to soar too near legitimate splendour, but his delusive wings melted in tl\e presence of truth and right, and he fell. Had she been left to bloom where nature had placed her she had been " In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls. Queen lily and rose in one : Shining out little head, running over with curls To the flowers and been their sun." 48 Homeward Bound. A Duchess of Leeds, a Marchioness of Wellesley and a Lady Stafford have graced the society of the grandest, if not the most beautiful of capitals. Lady Stafford having already divided the cares and doubled the joys of a Baronet, Sir T. E. Bathurst Harvey. And humbler hearths have been gladdened beneath the cross of St. George, the "Nathalie's" burgee flutters over one of the best of the comely matrons of Baltimore. The natural appreciation of personal distinction apparent here as elsewhere, and becoming rapidly developed in the liberal use of military titles, of the universal "mister," and the scarce less ubiquitous "Honorable" ladies claiming their share as, Mrs. Secretary of State , Mrs. Postmaster General , Mrs. Secretary of War , &c, &c, the reassumption of crests, of liveries, and not the least of all, the sporting of the cockade, a meaningless bauble, bye-the-bye, without its symbolic significance, embolden us to claim for Maryland the honor of being the residence of the premier peer of America, the Right Hon. John Montee, 11th Baron Fairfax, of Oakbank, Prince George's County. The morn is up again, the dewy morn, With breath all incense and with cheek all bloom, Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn ; And living as if earth contained no tomb, and glowing into day I TUESDAY, JUNE 21ST, 1881, The starboard watch had come on deck at eight bells (4 A. M.), before the master shook himself from his reverie, and daylight breaking bright and clear, he descended the companion to snatch an hour or two's repose, before the stir in the childrens locker and other attractions should dispel such a possibility. At 6 A. M., the washing of the decks overhead remind us that the yachtsman's bath is ready, and we show up in scanty attire, to receive from hose and bucket their delightful douche. The boys have a very merry time of it, novelty lending its enchantment, and the days work of the cabin has commenced in earnest. 50 Homeward Bound \ There is an old saying that it takes two hands at sea to look after a boy. It certainly is a difficult problem, the how to provide for his safety. One cannot trice up boarding nettings, as the vagaries of the main boom have to be considered as well as other conditions in connection with the working of the vessel, else, the difficulty would be solved. The boatswain entertains the elder boys for the present, in teaching them the various knots and splices; and the mother assumes the protectorate of the girls. Upon this bright and cheerful morning, enjoyments and blessings innumerable are concentrated into our little sphere. The bounding waves of the deep blue sea, career along in their laughing sport, scattering showers of pearls in lavish abandonment. The crisp and fragrant breeze so invigorating after the relaxing and poisoned atmosphere of the pent up city, exhilarating as if charged with laugh- ing gas, penetrates into every air cell of the lungs, and every corpuscle of the blood. The blue sky and feathery cirrus, yield contrast to enhance each others beauties. And the vessel, of the most perfect object of man's crea- tion, perfect herself. The exquisite beauty of her moulded form. The milk-white and spotless decks with their faultlessly drawn whiter seams delineating plan and shear, swelling into curves of beauty as they descend to the section of greatest beam, and gradually approaching each other as they rise to the apron of the stem. From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. 51 The bright varnished mahogany companion ways and skylights with their burnished brass fittings contrasting so successfully with the purity of the decks. The yellow taper- ing masts, stretching a hundred and twenty feet upwards, topped with the little restless burgee supporting their burdens of unsullied canvas in complete repose. The officers in their blue and gold, the men in graceful and well cut white, with cuffs and rolling collars of blue, straw hats with lettered bands, and pipe -clayed slippers, all clean shaven each to his fancy, presenting a variety of feature and expression, each face in itself a benediction, to inspire the genius of an artist, and gladden the heart of a philan- thropist. And then the " placens uxor" with if possible reanimated beauty and heightened charms. The bairnes wild as deer in their superabundant health. The cheery Doctor, friend and counsellor. The faithful Bella, mother's mate, we may call her on shipboard, to the children, and familiar from their first breaths with their stormy sorrows and stormy joys. And what shall we say of Katinka, the maiden of eighteen, coy and pretty, though prudent withal, revealing her true feelings toward the pick of our crew by studied avoidance and snubbing, tearing the poor honest fellow's heart to tatters while breaking her own. The per- sonification of Moore's Irish Maidens' with — "The sweet wild briary fence, That warns the touch, while winning the sense, Nor charms us least when it most repels." 52 Homeward Bound, If you can imagine and appreciate all these, reader, then share our bliss and thankfulness. A smart constitutional tramp, a few sights for longitude, and the master reads family prayers to which all on board the "Nathalie " have free access, as it may please them, and the savory smell from the stewards department anticipates the breakfast bell. As we press to the meal, a general rash to the table to save imaginary imminent destruction of crockery is barely frustrated by the steward, our passengers being as yet unfamiliar with the protective purpose of a swing- ing table, designed to adjust itself and its burden to the move- ments of the vessel. The cant of the ship as she lay over to her canvas, presenting to the uninitiated, an ocular illusion that had nearly resulted in deficiencies in the pantry. It would have done a city matron good, to have seen the appetites that were satisfied this first morning at sea, and the steward looks as if anxious already, as to the sufficiency of his supply of fresh provisions. The Doctor distinguishes himself after breakfast, a school of porpoises close to the yacht, affords amusement to the boys, who pop at them with their mimic rifles, effective weapons when directed to the purposes for which they are designed, no doubt, but harmless when pointed to larger game. Whether our distinguished disciple of y£sculapius had visions of porpoise flesh for luncheon or not, has not been ascertained and probably never will be, as he is now From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. 53 dangerous to approach upon the subject. Certain it is he disappears from the deck mysteriously with Mr. Selwyn and emerges with a regulation Martini-Henri rifle, and having knowingly inserted his charge and rested his piece against the topmast backstay, he waits for a favorable rise, embraces an opportunity and simultaneously with the report appears sitting in a dazed condition upon the deck looking for his piece, which has disappeared overboard. Unfamiliar with the usage of such weapons, he had not made allow- ance for its propensity. The master while waiting, sextant in hand, upon the sun's convenience to attain his altitude, recounts a story a propos of the medicos discomfiture. After a hard day's duck shooting with a friend, he entered the Railroad Station of North East, [Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore Railroad,] about midnight, to find a dozen men dozing round a red hot stove. One of the gentlemen seeing the well filled bags and accoutrements, thus expressed himself, " Been gunnin ? " " Yes ! " After a considerable pause, during which he had time to, and probably dreamt the rest, he continued half in soliliquy : (i Wal, the wust kick I ever had was from an old Kintucky muskit, when I fired her off, she knocked me down, and from that moment to this I never see that muskit!" Having delivered himself of which marvelous narrative he again relapsed to slumber. The Doctor fails to see the similarity to his case, and expresses in strong language his 54 Homeward Bound, sense of contempt for the narrator. More disposed is he to give credence to another story illustrating the ready wit of a fellow countryman, even in uncongenial circumstances. Not long since, in Baltimore, several steamers of a trans- atlantic line were lying at the piers of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, their names terminating in " 'more," half a dozen overwrought fellows were eating their frugal breakfasts, sitting in a row under shade of the shed, after working upon them since the dawn. Says one, " What's the name of thim steamers?" Well, says the knowing one of the party, " There's the Thanemore and there's the Rath- more, that's two is'nt it? and there's the — the — " at a loss to remember the next. " Why dont you say the " No more" at wanst, man? said a comrade, eliciting the usual laugh. . Young or old, well circumstanced or ill, unhappily generally the latter, the Irishman is a perpetual baby, as the priest who, censured by his Bishop for too much levity, elicited a smile of forgiveness in replying : 11 Is it lave gaiety All to the laity, Cannot the Clargy be Irishmen too ? " The Medico will add his contribution. An Irish actor of well deserved repute appeared before a Dublin audience in a pair of white duck pantaloons that had not very recently been acquainted with a laundress. Being of rather hasty temper, the Dublin "gods," as the inhabitants of the upper From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. 55 gallery are called, loved to torment him. Just as he was about to give expression to a passage of more than ordinary effect, he was greeted from the celestial regions with « I say, Barney, when did your ducks last take to the water ? ' ' The actor was completely lost in the scene that followed as he shook his fists frantically toward Olympus in a towering rage. At noon we are in 38° 40' north latitude, 72° 28' west longitude, 130 miles from Cape Henry. The Gulf Stream carrying us to the northeastward about two knots per hour. The beautiful kittywakes [" Larus Tridactylus"~] follow us in great numbers, picking up such morsels from the cook's department as may be thrown overboard to suit their appe- tites. These birds follow us closely all the way across, but when near the opposite coasts, seem to give way to a larger and a coarser bird [Larus Canus,~] what they do with them- selves at night it is hard to say, as they must have a long and fast fly of it to pick us up if they sleep upon the water. We have known them washed on board and killed during a gale in the dark hours. It is likely that scattered as they are over the face of the waters, they appear as does the small boy to a row, when daylight discloses a readier source of a meal than the foraging prospect entailed in the absence of a vessel. We pass close to several fine three-masted schooners, and one or two coasting steamers during the afternoon, bound to the southward, the fine ' ' Decatur H. Miller," of the "Merchants' and Miner's Transportation 56 Homeward Bound, Line," amongst the number, steering for the Chesapeake, her decks alive with tourists. The boys come up with their fishing lines and squids in pursuit of blue fish, but the pace is too fast for the amuse- ment and the master knows better than to waste a fair twelve knot breeze while he has it, as the result of wilful waste at sea is as sure to bring woeful want as ashore ; no luff therefore this time boys or shortening sail to come down to your four knot amusements. The day lingers on, a day of great enjoyment, gradually it fades into evening and such a sunset, the whole western sky in a blaze of splendour of ever changing and brilliant colours,, and in the sheen of the sun we notice for the first time a solitary vessel transformed, as it were, into gold, that seems to be pursuing her course upon a river of silver radiance into a gorgeously haloed archway, the portals of Heaven. We linger on deck to a late hour, loth to lose the last ray of such enchantment. We have musicians in our crew, and occasionally while cruising, we improvise an entertainment on deck and encourage an occasional yarn from some one or other of the men who are allowed to stand around and con- tribute as they may be invited to the general fund. We have never found it to be abused, and if the owner and his crew understand each other, it never will be. This evening we open our course, Ned Johnson is our fiddler, and criticised From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. 57 from a nautical standpoint it would be hard to find a better. A hornpipe from Herron is a thing one does not see every day, and to Johnson's " Jacks the Lad," he excels himself, if possible, this evening. Tom Ryan is our tenor as well as the wit and life of the crew. The Doctor's bass is always delightful and the men adore him as much for this as his ever ready interest in their concerns, to night his " When they carved at the meal In their gloves of steel, And drank the red wine, From the helmet barred," rang out with splendid effect, the sea rendering its applause to the refrain. The master reads for the men a true narrative from family records : " GALLANT NAVAL ACTION." The story is told in the language of the young hero himself, aged 24 years. The following is an account of the capture of the "Clarissa," of Martinique, after a most severe action fought by Mr. William , of the City of Cork, a passen- ger on board. Mr. Justin McCarthy, Mate of the "Clarissa," and a mulatto against a prize crew of ten, one of whom was killed and three wounded. The " Clarissa" sailed from Cork for Martinique, 14th of May, 1795. On the 6th of June, in the morning, we espied a 58 Homeward Bound. sail in the N, E., we were then in latitude 27° N. and longi- tude 32° W., she gave us chase, and by ten o'clock came within gunshot and gave us one, and four more before we rounded to for her, she was a republican schooner, called the "Bee d'Ambase," mounting three 24 pounders, 30 swivels, and carrying 80 men. She was one of a squadron that sailed from Rochfort on a secret expedition, and from which she parted in a gale of wind . They were destined to guard the Port of Cayenne. They boarded us, took the captain and six men on board and put their first lieutenant, a marine officer and eight men on board of us to take charge of the brig. The mate was left on board to condemn the vessel, Mr. O'Brien a fellow passenger, very bad, a mulatto and your humble servant. The first shot she gave us I took the pistols and cartridges out of my trunk and secreted them, and told Mr. O'Brien, the captain and mate I would retake the vessel or die in the attempt. The schooner took us in tow and kept us so for thirteen days. We were then very near Cayenne. The schooner then left us to look for a pilot to take the brig into port. About four hours after she left us I went into my stateroom loaded my pistols and divided the cartridges and got all ready for action I went to Mr. O'Brien and told him we were going to begin, he begged we would defer for three or four days and then, perhaps, he would be able to assist us. The mate and I were hot, and it was not easy to make us put it off; however, From the Chesapeake to the Mersey, 59 we did to oblige him. The third night after, which was Saturday, the 21st of June, we had just assisted Mr. O'Brien to bed, the mate went upon deck and I sat ruminating upon the business I wished would go forward. I knew we wanted but one day more to put us into an enemy's port. I called Mr. O'Brien, I asked him, well, sir, what would you wish should be done? must we lay this business aside entirely or push it forward ? He asked me what could two of us do against eleven, for he was sure we could not trust the mulatto. I told him I meant to put no confidence in him, but to bring him into action and then if he deceived us he should be one of the first we should shoot. At this he seemed a little hurt, thinking we had no intention of the business, but made a handle of him that we might say that only for him we would have retaken the vessel, and said, 16 Mr. O the subject is a very improper one to talk of to a man in my situation." I replied, "certainly it is, but we did not wish to do it without your concurrence." " He then said, " I do not care what you do." I did not speak another word to him until after the action. I went upon deck, it was ten o'clock, I asked the mate was he ready, the answer was "yes, by G — ." I then told him to call the mulatto. He called him from amongst the Frenchmen, and went down. When I saw all clear on deck I went down also, the mate had secured the lieutenant's cutlass. I then asked the mulatto whether he wished to go to Cayenne with 60 Homeward Bound, the Frenchmen, for they had made him a citoyen and had promised to do great things for him. He said he would rather go to Martinique. I then told him he must stick by us, he said he would. I gave the mate one of my pistols and half my cartridges, kept the other myself and the lieutenant's cutlass, for I was still doubtful, so brought him up unarmed. The mate spoke very good French. I desired he would tell them that they must surrender the property and themselves prisoners. They were all in a cluster on the after part of the quarter deck. We both went aft and we told them our inten- tion, that if they surrendered quietly we would not hurt one of them, and would treat them well ; but if they did not, they must take the consequences. They hardly gave us time to finish when we were surrounded by the ten, and they began a stout resistance. As the lieutenant sprang forward at the mate, I lodged the contents of my pistol in his jaw. The marine officer sprang at me, the mate gave fire at him but missed him, we were then in the middle of them and both our pistols discharged, the mulatto unarmed, but thumping away at them at a terrible rate. I called to the mate to load again. We were just in the act when the lieutenant, springing forward a second time, wounded as he was, the mate struck him with the barrel end of the pistol, shivering it in pieces. The lieutenant, a stout strapping spirited fellow, did not mind the blow, was in the act of overpowering the mate. This was all done in half a minute after we fired first, From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. 61 and I was loading my pistol when I saw what was going on between the mate and lieutenant. I made at him with the cutlass, struck him over the left side of the head and made him desist. The stroke made him acknowledge a God whom he had made a scoff of a few minutes before. I then wheeled round with the cutlass on those that came to his assistance, and we drove them all off the quarter deck. I then loaded the pistol again, and they rallied with handspikes, empty bottles, the cook's axe and everything they could find. I went three steps to meet them, fired, and shot the marine officer in the right leg. I called to them immediately on my firing, and told them I had five pistols more, and if they did not retreat and go below, I would fire again ; they believed? and I loaded while I was talking. As soon as I was loaded, I told the mate to take the cutlass and offer them quarter if they went down immediately. The answer he got was a blow on the breast from a spar eight feet long from the lieutenant, so that he could not come near any of them with the cutlass. When he received the blow, he made over to me and the lieutenant after him. I put the loaded pistol into his hand and took the cutlass and the remains of the broken pistol — in order to see if I could find the barrel and lash it to again — with which he wheeled round upon the lieutenant and he retreated forward again. I called to the mate not to shoot him, but try if he would take quarter, and he kept the mate in talk while I was looking for the barrel of the pistol. 62 Homeward Bound, The marine officer came aft with a handspike to strike me, though he was wounded in the leg. I saw him coming, but was determined to receive the stroke, though the mulatto was armed with the cutlass. I did not think it would be prudent to put him between me and the stroke lest he might be knocked down, the cutlass then would fall into their hands. I desired him to stand by and do as I bid him — he did. I held my left arm up to break the stroke from my head. It was so violent that it beat down my arm and still came so severe upon my head that it made fire fly out of my eyes, and laid my arm open. As soon as I received the stroke, I told the mulatto to spring forward, he did, when the fellow was lifting for the second stroke, and laid his right arm open, it dropped and he staggered forward. In the meantime, the lieutenant and the gang, when they saw me receive the stroke, pressed on the mate, he fired and we ran to his assistance and beat them back again. He missed wounding any of them with that shot too, however, I soon loaded again. The lieutenant and two men took to the rigging in the hopes they would escape the balls that flew forward, and in expectation that we would expend our ammunition, but they were mistaken, for when I loaded the pistol, I told the mate that every shot they obliged us to give we must drop a man. Whilst we were consulting on the quarter deck, and offering them quarter and good usage, the lieutenant saw from the shrouds the marine officer going From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. 63 below, he called him coward, and told him to remain and they could have the vessel yet. He told him in return it was impossible to stand, he was so much wounded and had lost so much blood. The lieutenant answered he was wounded worse, for his head was laid open. The marine officer again replied, what can we do against three armed men ? The lieutenant said " no, coward ! they had but two pistols at first, one was broken upon my head, and after they fire the one they have, if we push them close, we will have her yet." The mate understood him and called to me for the pistol. I gave it to him. He ran forward and took the opposite side of the rigging to that which the lieutenant was in. I was surprised that he should quit the deck with the only pistol we had, so called to him to come down immediately, and not to fire his pistol until he joined me. The lieutenant called upon his citoyens to surround the rigging below, he would stand the shot and they could cut him off from me. They flew to the station. The lieutenant attempted to come down, McCarthy was as nimble as he and was down as low as he and presented the pistol. The lieutenant ran up two or three ratlines again, thinking McCarthy would fire where he stood, but he was as quick as he. Th^ lieutenant then stopped to talk with him, the . . -.1 got was from the pistol. McCarthy and I thought he was not wounded, he came down so nimbly, upon which McCarthy called out, " stand by, that fellow is coming aft to 64 Homeward Bound, you ! " I answered, " I am ready for him." With that I ran forward to receive him with the cutlass. I was just going to give the blow, but on the man's walking from me, I kept my arm back. He went to the boat, leaned on his arm and then lay down quietly beside me and never spoke more. We then, after two more were wounded bore them down below, fastened the hatches, and shaped our course for Martinique. When all was cleverly to rights, I had the w r oimded men called up, stopped the blood for the night, and in the morning dressed them with lint and a poultice of flour and water boiled. It was nineteen days from the time we took the vessel until we arrived, we very fortunately fell in with nothing. Had we been taken again you would have had the honour of having one of your family guillotined by the French, for killing one of their republican officers. However, do not think that daunted me. If I were in the same situation to-morrow, I would act in the same manner. On our arrival, the captains of the men-of-war came on board to see the three brave fellows that brought nine French prisoners into port and killed one. We used no treachery with them. We did not kill them when asleep. I shuddered with horror when one of them asked me did we shoot them when asleep. (( No. we gave them fair play and were sorry for what was necessary for us to do." From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. 65 We all turn in, tired after our first day's experience at sea, the good ship rolling up steadily her twelve knots before a brisk whole sail westerly breeze upon smooth water with undeviating regularity. " A strong northwester's blowing Bill, Hark ! don't you hear it roar now ; Lord help us f how I pities them Unhappy folks ashore now." — " Pitt." WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22ND, 1881. The rmrning breaks as a morning should after such a sunset — brilliant sunshine and brilliant breeze. u If the sun in red should set, The next day will be free from wet ; But if the sun should set in grey, The next will be a rainy day." Such is supposed to be a sailor's prophecy, but we have never heard it from a foremast Jack, though frequently abaft. Our course N. 63° E. we lay like a steamer. The wind freshens with' a tendency to come out from the north- From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. 67 west, and as the barometer seems to be unsettled, we prepare for one of those short but sometimes lively blows to be experienced during the summer. The master lets her carry all she will as long as she can, and wide-awake she is as she sends the water hissing through the scuppers, chuckling under us as she thinks of the dismay occasioned in the women's quarters. At noon she has made 290 miles, and we find her in latitude 40° 15' north, and 67° 50' west longitude, course N. 63° E. The spin drift is too much for the feminines, who begin to feel a little uncomfortable. Meanwhile we skoot along the eastern margin of St. George's bank, merrily ! Oh, so merrily ! The children amuse themselves in preparing a document in regular form detailing our whereabouts and circumstances, to be enclosed in a bottle and thrown overboard. The Doctor relates a story told by Sir Duncan McGregor, once of the 31st Regiment, who was on board the " Kent/' East Indiaman, when she was destroyed by fire in the Bay of Biscay, and who, as soon as the fire broke out, hastily wrote a few lines describing the condition of affairs, which he placed in a bottle and launched over- board. Four years later, when quartered with his regiment at Barbadoes, during an early morning walk on the beach, he observed something floating towards him, which, upon closer examination, proved to be the identical bottle he had thrown overboard under such distressing circumstances. 68 Homeward Bound , The master adds another — Captain D'Auberville, in the Barque " Chieftain," of Boston, put into Gibraltar on the 27th of August, 1851. With two of his passengers he crossed the straits to Abylus, on the African coast. When about to return, one of his boats crew picked up what was supposed to be a piece of peculiar rock, on closer examination, however, it was found to be a cedar keg, completely encrusted with barnacles. Within the keg was found a cocoanut enveloped in a kind of gum or resinous substance. Enclosed in this nut was a parchment covered with strange writing which proved to be a brief report drawn up by Columbus, in 1493, of his discoveries up to that period. In 1852 a bottle was thrown overboard 1500 miles at sea from a vessel bound from Thurso, in Scotland, to Canada, this was recovered some months afterwards within two miles of the port from which the vessel had sailed. Captain Becher, many years ago, published a chart of no less than one hundred and nineteen bottle voyages ; and later in 1852, another of sixty-two instances of similar solitary wanderings. The uncomfortable condition of the decks this evening, and the uneasy motion of the vessel, disarranging customary routine, our after dinner social chat became more than ordinarily prolonged, and exhilarated into quite an inter- lude in exchanges of wit and anecdote. A few of the current stories may, perhaps, bear repetition. From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. 69 Poor W , drowned at sea on his way home to England invalided, upon his first introduction to Baltimore Street, in 1872, was struck by the, to him, unusual appear- ance of a hearse with its plate-glass panels and exterior adornments. Seeking its purpose from a policeman near by, who was doubtless a Hibernian, he ascertained " that it was a vehicle in which ladies and gentlemen now and then reclined while taking short drives into the country.' ' His insular prejudices at once found vent in exclamations unfavorable to the ultimate destiny of a nation addicted to such palpably luxurious habits. As he occasionally acted as correspondent for some home publications, their readers probably sympathized in his prophetic denunciations. It is needless to add that his experiences soon became more profound and he frequently narrated the occurrence with frank disinterestedness. Lt. Col. H. , while passing from Digby to Yar- mouth, N. S., engaged in writing in the cabin of the little steamer, looked up from his paper for a moment, and was struck with the attitude of a plethoric, seedily dressed individual, snoring open-mouthed close beside him. A newspaper lay open upon his lap, the significant title of which was " The Christian at Work ! " Major , on receiving a telegram from a friend while in India, announcing his having been selected for decora- tion with the C. S. I. (Companion of the Star of India,) 70 Homeward Bound, replied by the same medium of communication, <( thank you/' but wishing to avail of the full number of words (six) allowed in a message, added, " twinkle, twinkle little star." Last winter, at Halifax, a gentleman rather elevated from the effects of recent too liberal potations was thrown from a street car platform into the deep surrounding snow. He was immediately seen to strike out manfully with all the grace of an accomplished swimmer, accompanying the movements with the energetic expulsions of air from the lungs incidental to the act. He had in his abstractedness scarcely recognized that the element with which he believed himself to be contending had not yet emerged from its wintry repose. A certain gallant soldier serving in our Eastern posses- sions, from the marvelous nature of his narratives, had attained the soubriquet of "Jung Sing Sahib," or the "Liar Chief," such a one as our old friend Horace would dub " splendide mendax" A late Governor General admiring his neatly shaped boots which had been obtained from the chief of London makers, enquired of him where he had obtained them. The officer replied, naming a certain bazaar in Calcutta. Pressed for the address of the maker there, he answered, " I'm sorry to say, your Excellency, that he died last night ! " One more. At Zowa, during the late Afghanistan campaign, Major H 's, Mountain Battery was ordered From the Chesapeake to the Mersey, 71 upon an eminence to cover the advance of the 85th Regi- ment while crossing an intervening valley to an attack upon the enemies works, upon an opposite crest. While anxiously watching the bursting of his schrapnel in the works so as to cease firing before the advancing column came within reach of its desolating mission, a little white fox-terrier appeared in the range of his glass, trotting along unconcernedly before the regiment, pursuing the erratic investigations peculiar to his species. The night closes in grey and "ugly" wind freshen- ing and sea rising. At 10 P. M., the master, anxious for his spars, reduces sail, and his saucy craft submits with ill grace as he clips her wings. An hour later, as there is no longer doubt of what we are destined to catch, he strips her, and toggling on the foretrysail, hauls her to the wind not a moment too soon. At three bells (1.30 A. M.,) the heart is out of it, and he lets her have close reefed mainsail and fores taysail, and watching for a smooth lets her off once more upon her course on which she flies like the scud, her speed quickened and arrested in that peculiarly agreeable alternation as she mounts upon the crest or sinks into the trough of the undulating and restless sea. Towards day- light, the wind has removed its spell and the sea is going down; she is shaken loose once more, and "up topsails!" rings out again. Beyond occasional demonstrations of 72 Homeward Bound, malade de mer with accompanying characteristics, no com- plaints have come from below, and at breakfast the steward pulls a longer face than ever, hinting his apprehen- sions as he says, " thim's the last of the kidneys, " sir. u The drying up a single tear has more Of honest fame, than shedding seas of gore." — "Don Juan." THURSDAY, JUNE 23D, 1881. In the gale of last night we had our first mishap, and poor Ryan is the sufferer. In toggling the trysail to the foremast, it was his province to clip the sheet blocks to the cringle of the clew, while putting a mousing on the clip- hooks, the bunch broke from the grasp of Herron, catching Ryan's head and hurling him with violence against the launch, breaking his leg and generally knocking him in a heap. The Doctor spent the night with the poor fellow, and he is so much better this morning that the children are with him in the forecastle helping with their prattle to 74 Homeward Bound, lighten his tribulation. Sailors are proverbially fond of children, their life is one of severance from domestic association, and familiarity readily engenders attachment for the little ones. Another cheery day, the barometer 30° 3 having been as low as 29° during the puff, all are life again on deck and hearty. At noon, we have made 230 miles, notwithstanding that we were hove to for near three hours, and find our vessel in 42° 50' north latitude and 62° 50' west longitude, course N. 63° E, running under Nova Scotia, distant 140 miles. We feel very uneasy about Ryan. The Doctor will not say much, but keeps moving in and out of his quarters with the consideration he would show to a Duchess. The wind hauls into the north but continues to blow steadily, and nothing could be pleasanter than our surroundings had we not a besetting anxiety like the sword of Damocles hanging over us ; in other respects we have been favored plentifully, especially as regards weather. Unlike Lord Byron, uncle of the poet, who, although recognized as an experienced naval commander, was most unlucky, his ill-fortune pursuing him so far as that he was never known to have had even a fair wind, except upon one occasion when he had such a superabundance as to have blown his frigate from St. Johns to Cape Clear under bare poles in three days. This, we should add, is tradition as far as we are concerned. From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. 75 We show our number and destination to a White Star Steamer in the afternoon, bound into New York, and ask him to report us, which he answers with the affirmative flag, and immediately runs up the signal (H. Q. J.), « you will fall in with ice if you go beyond (F. K. Q.) 45° N.," in acknowl- edgement of which we dip our ensign. The master is on deck to-night on the look out for Sable Island, lest his calculations should by any possibility be incorrect ; our course should keep us thirty miles south of it. We occupy ourselves in recalling some amusing features in connection with the nomenclature adopted for the different surroundings on shipboard. Beginning with the ladies, we find several on board, including some variety and peculiarity of description. There are Sister Kelsons, Sister Blocks, A Taunt, A Wind Lass, A Wind Gall, and then there are Fair Leaders, Fashion Pieces, Cross Pieces, Meta Center, Miss Stays. The last named, fortunately not a frequent visitor, for she never appears but as the sailors Nemesis. Her presence 76 Homeward Bound, turns everything into disorder and confusion, and the whole progress of the ship is arrested and placed in irons. The ladies are fairly supplied with ornaments, in fact with blocks of jewels, also Watches and Chains, Rings, Ear-Rings, Brooches, Sprays, Garnets, Crowns, Pendants. The rude sex are of course to be found where the gentle are in such numbers and assortment. There are among others, two brothers of Miss Stays, very steady and indus- trious hands, quite contrasts to their sister, Jack Stays, Bob Stays", Jack Block, Jack Yard, Jack Staff, Jack Screw. There are several Davitts, several Pawls, Martin Gale, and Jack Cross Trees, and there are several known only by nicknames, Cross Jack Yard, Cross Jack, From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. 77 Cross Pawl, Handy Billy, Monkey Rail. Then there are besides, yeomen, rakes and swains, and as a natural consequence, gammoning, hearts, whiskers, waists, cheeks, lips and laps, partings and wales, carryings away, bolts and preventer bolts, splicing, marrying, chapelling, berths, cradles, sisters and buoys, for whose amusement there are whips, tops, hoops and boats, and as punishment is inevitable — lashings. Household requirements are supplied with a lavish hand. First there is quoin, then houses, boarding, aloft, frequently balconies and galleries, companions, messen- gers, servings, beds, pillows, bolsters, quilting, sheets, needles, pins, thread, thimbles, harpins, awnings, fenders, aprons, bunting, bibbs, bows, bonnets, stays caps, collars, hooks and eyes, eyelet holes, yokes, ribbands, wear, spencers, tyes, hoods, shoes, lacings, yards, bands, viols, plates, gorings, meshes, nettings, cloth? spindles, scarfs, knots, seams, shears, shifts, stools, chairs, sweeps, jam, puddings, seasonings, washboards, &c. A butcher s shop is supplied with several qualities of mate. First mate, second mate, often third and fourth mate, the doctor must have his mate, sometimes the boatswain his mate, the carpenter, the gunner and even the cook him- self, their own several mates. There are goosenecks, 78 Homeward Bound \ sheepshanks, plates, ribs, saddles, shanks, tails, skins, horns, blades, chines, bitts, livers and lights. Of Fruits and Vege- tables the selection is not large, still there are plumbs, hawse, leaks and peas. Of Fish — wales, dolphins, sole, gudgeon, ro.ach, flukes and crabs. Of Birds — rails, crane, foul, ducks and boobies. Of Animals — dogs, hounds, rats, mouse, horses, monkeys, camels, bears, foxes and hogs. Letters may be implied from the fact of their being two posts daily — the stern post and thejrudder post. Insects and reptiles, too, are plenty in this promiscuously in- habited ark — bees, flies, creepers, roaches, worms, leeches, snakes, chintzes, beetles, lizards. Drinkables are not sup- plied with the consideration due to creature comfort ; we only know of ' port ' and a beverage called 'swig;' there is plenty of salt water, in fact "water, water everywhere, but scarce a drop to drink." There are amusements such as fishing, horses, drags, drivers and drives, stables, mangers, bridles, saddles and stirrups. There are many means of restraining excesses, we cannot find a police man, unless the cook's mate can be called a "peeler," from his habitually acting in the capacity upon potatoes ; but the real thing is not there, in fact it is not likely he would long survive it, but there is somehow " clubbing" without him, and for serious misdemeanours, chains, shackles, irons, seizings, gratings and cats. From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. 79 The Doctor congratulates himself that his services with those of the Parson are more implied than suggested, but the master is down upon him, and see what a catalogue he brings about his ears — shivers, shakes, seizings, of all kinds, falls, bites, worms, gripes and gripings, gorings, chafings, leeches, draughts, stretchers, crutches, long legs, short legs, seasickness, as implied in reaching and even fore-reaching at times. Now master, he exclaims, " you are done as you have come to far fetching," but he- has put his foot in it worse than before, for some of his delinquencies become apparent. There are " stiffs," "wakes," " bitter ends," " shrouds," "dead reckonings," "dead eyes," " wales," "partings," and " many ends," "but master there are heelings," "there are Doctor and bills." Strangest of all, there are not many ropes, con- trary to what is supposed, on shipboard; there are the buoy rope, bucket rope, tiller rope, foot ropes, man ropes and ridge ropes. Of music we have not been deprived, as we have a < horn,' a i trumpet,' < fiddles,' and the ' spider band.' There's a sweet little cherub that sits up aloft, To keep watch for the life of poor jack." — lt Dibden." FRIDAY, JUNE 24TH, 1881. The Doctor has passed a second night with poor Ryan, and depresses us inconceivably with his apprehensions that internal injuries of serious import may at any moment develope themselves. The poor fellow is perfectly con- scious and asks continually for the children. The carpenter's shop has been fitted up for him as comfortably as circumstances admit, and the mistress lends her invaluable aid, good nurse and comforter-as she is, assisted by Bella, and Katinka whose distress betrays a tenderer emotion. While at breakfast, Mr. Jocelyn knocks at the saloon door and reports whales, sir !" In a moment every seat is vacant, capital views are had of the monster of the deep, plunging and blowing in his gambols close under our lee, and the From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. 81 children have their fill in the reality of their picture book representations. We were soon destined for another diver- sion. At six bells (11 A. M.,) the lookout reports "a dis- masted vessel broad on the weather bow," which we presume to have been caught napping and to have been stripped in the blow of the morning of the 23d inst. We keep up for her in the hope that if necessary we may be the means of rendering assistance to our weather-tossed relatives of the sea. Half an hour brings us under her stern, whence we can barely read her name, the "Eclipse," of Halifax, N. S. She appears to be a barque of 450 tons, timber laden and much weather worn. No answer having been made to our hail, the gig is lowered, and with two hands, the carpenter, Mr. Jocelyn and the Doctor, the master pulls alongside. A chop- ping sea made it difficult to get aboard, as a sluice of water rolled over her from side to side ; they, however, jump into the fore chains and after a thorough survey fail to find any- thing of interest beyond the fact that she had been long deserted. Her decks had begun to yawn and she was fast becoming water logged, so we continue our course rejoicing that no record of suffering had been found on board. Had her cargo been of a less buoyant nature, the master would have scuttled her, as such obstacles on dark nights are the " snags " of the ocean, and present opportunities for serious collisions. A torch would only have released the timber to become 82 Homeward Bound, distributed, thereby multiplying the dangerous obstacles. It is to be hoped she may be driven ashore before she becomes disintegrated, and thus salvage and safety be alike assured. Capital observations place us at noon in 43° 36' north, latitude, and 58° 20' west longitude, distance run 245 miles wind N., course N. 67° E. Warned by the White Star report, the master now keeps her to the eastward so as to avoid ice if possible or meet it in clear weather, and our course is altered to N. 90° E. Towards the evening the wind hauls to the northeast, and we are " full and by," our first experience since leaving of a contrary wind. It freshens towards night to a double reefed mainsail, whole forestaysail and jib, dousing the foresail. With too much of a lee helm, we take the bonnet off our working jib, the one we carry at sea being so fitted to save hacking our cruising canvas as much as possible, and her tiller as it should in perfection gives just the taste of a weather. 11 Leaves have their time to fall, And flowers to wither at the North winds breath ; And stars to set : but all Thou hast all seasons for thine own, Oh, death ! " — Mrs. Hemans. SATURDAY, JUNE 25TM, 1881. The worst has passed and poor Ryan has paid his debt to nature. At midnight the mistress comes noise- lessly into the saloon and beckons the master, whispering "he calls for yon." " Your hand is pleasant to feel, sir," he says to the master, "though it be for the last time. Our next cruise, sir, will be a long one, and I trust we shall be shipmates : we shall want no light, sir, in the binnacle, and — and — God bless you — sir, and the mistress," a sigh, a gasp, and he has gone to his promo- tion, and every eye pays the homage of a tear. Thus surrounded by the affection of hard-fisted comrades, and 84 Homeward Bound, the gentle solicitude of female tenderness, enhanced many degrees by the peculiar association of life afloat ; its suc- cession of dangers mutually encountered and pleasures shared, a general sympathy born and nurtured by long companionship, passed away a life whose log is a recapitu- lation of duties faithfully performed and now and always cordially acknowledged, u Le plus brave de les braves." One who, somehow, was always at the point where fitness was requisite and courage indispensable. If a rapid change of jib, in a gale of wind, was for a moment retarded by some fouling of the traveller, Ryan was at the tack relieving the difficulty, deluged in the solid blue water. If " in topsails " was delayed by a hitch in the sheet, it was Ryan's voice that bellowed from aloft " lower away ! " Alow or aloft, afloat or ashore, he had the ingenuity of turning up where his services were most needed. Coming down rather late one night in a certain seaport, and nearing the gig, the master was attacked by half a dozen roughs, intent on robbery, or horse play, his whistle soon brought the boat's crew to his assistance, and it was Ryan's brawny arm that was foremost in laying them out like ten pins in a bowling alley. He was the master's coxswain, and much attached to him, and under his occasional in- struction was making considerable progress in navigation, and would soon have been able to have passed as second mate. He was fortunately unmarried, and on our approach to From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. 85 our home port, " the girls on the tow rope" will be largely represented in special devotion to him. At noon we are in 43° 30' north latitude and 54° 30' west longitude, and record the worst distance yet accom- plished, 170 miles. The day is passed in mourning for the poor fellow who has been taken from amongst us, the deck is deserted, except by the watch, for all, both fore and aft, are heartily unstrung. 11 The lightest wind was in its nest, The tempest in its home, The whispering waves were half asleep, The clouds were gone to play. And on the bosom of the deep, The smile of heaven lay. It seemed as if the hour were one Sent from beyond the skies, Which scattered from above the scene A light from Paradise."— "L. E. L." SUNDM, JUNE 26TM, 1881. The day begins with a pleasant breeze, a flowing sheet and a calm sea, a tribute of nature to the sad duty before us. At six bells (10 A. M.,) the church flag is at the peak, the ship's bell rings for service as usual, which the master reads on deck, that all hands, watch included, may partake of its holy influences so peculiarly grateful to-day. At noon we are on the tail of the grand bank of New- foundland, in 43° 30' north latitude and 50° 30' west From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. 87 longitude, distance 170 miles, course made good N. 90° E. The wind has been easterly and variable, and not much of it. At four bells (2 P. M.,) the flags are hoisted at half mast, the ship's bell tolls sadly, the vessel is hove to. The mournful procession emerges from the^forecastle, marching toward the gangway where the master, with open book and uncovered head awaits it, every occupant of the little craft clustering round. Poor Ryan's remains had been carefully and lovingly sewed up in his hammock, well shotted at the lower extremity, and are now reposing draped with the Union Jack upon a plank which is laid athwart the rail projecting about half its length overboard, but supported within by his special "chums." The master reads the beautiful service of the Church of England for the burial of the dead, more than ordinarily impressive in the novelty of -the surround- ings, and the universal sorrow of our little isolated world, in which there is not an eye but betrays the sincerest emotion. " I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord; he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live ; and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die." * * * "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth, and though after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God, 88 Homeward Bound, whom I shall see for myself, but not another." * * And as the sentence ' ' we therefore commit his body to the •deep," is concluded, the plank is raised withinboard and the sea has swallowed all that is mortal of our comrade, " to be turned into corruption looking for the resurrection of the body when the sea shall give up her dead." Towards evening the wind shifts to the southward and we are enveloped in a dense fog, clearing now and then to enable us to discern an unoccupied course before us. ; And fear'st thou, and fear'st thou, And see'st thou, and hear'st thou ; And drive we not free O'er the terrible sea, I and thou." — " Shelley.' MONDAY, JUNE 27TH, 1881. We cannot imagine a position in which Mark Tapley would have been a more welcome guest than upon our decks this morning. Enveloped in a mantle of dreariest fog, which intrudes even to our very hearth, and not satisfied with dressing us in a shroud, accompanies its Nemesis like attendance with cold and dripping mois- ture, and to complete the misery, the indescribable melancholy and hoarse groan of the fog horn, in one prolonged note as we are on the starboard tack, conveys the dismal circumstances to every cranny of our little bark. The master, up all night, watches his thermometer for atmospheric and water readings, and continues about 90 Homeward Bound, the deck. He carries all sail that his craft will bear/ anxious to drive her into clear weather as soon as possible, as he holds that to strike obstacles at a speed of five knots would be as effective, though not, perhaps, as summary as at ten or twelve; even contact with ice when hove to would be probably fatal, so that the best course is in the absence of actual warning of approximate danger, to shut one's teeth and let her go as quickly as she can be driven out of the quandary. No observations possible, the sun being obscure, but by dead reckoning we are in 44° 45' north latitude, and 45° 25' west longitude, distance to noon 220 miles, course N. 74° E., weather unchanged. At four bells (2 P. M.), we are blessed with an occasional glimpse of blue sky, and shortly after we drive quickly — almost abruptly — into fine clear weather, and leave our misery behind us. At 3 P. M. a large iceberg is reported on the lee bow, and the ship's company is all astir, the children wild with excitement, and well, indeed, they may be. At first glance it resembles the upheaval from some terrific subaqueous explosion, instantaneously congealed, towering upwards as it does from its smallest diameter at base, in sharp and diverging basaltic-like ridges of green glass to an over- hanging plume-shaped summit of snowy foam. Upon nearer approach, the rays of the departing sun; toying with its irregularity of surface, transform it into a monster but From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. 91 partially cut diamond. When we have it aboard, as close as prudence warrants, its majesty defies description • Niagara capsized and held in fountain-like action by superhuman agency, but in comparison of magnitude the mighty cataract is dwarfed into nothingness. Luly says, "a giant bunch of lilies of the valley." Our little craft seems like a froth flake, blown from its summit or a lily blossom from its garland. Its base fretted and worn by the continuous heave and wash of the sea, rends to tatters the liquid zone with which it is. confined, while from a gorge of ruptured glass, a hundred feet above, roars a cataract of limpid water, distributed as it falls through smooth-worn green fissures wrought in its sides. Upon an eminence, monarch of his surroundings, and weary with the cares and responsibilities of his crown, sits a white bear, anxious aud melancholy, his choice is clearly between suicide and starvation : poor fellow, we cannot' help him, his fate is inevitable. So we leave his isolated kingdom, our feelings of awe and admiration subdued by a sad % sympathy. We wish we could afford him a more sub- stantial consolation than that his solitary realm cannot long, if at all, survive him. The Doctor evidently contemplates regicide as a happy release from probably prolonged suffering, but his humane instincts are overbalanced by his fear of chaff if again seen rifle in hand. 92 Homeward Bound, Towards sunset the wind becomes unsettled, veers to the eastward against the sun and the barometer exhibits signifi- cant symptoms. We are, however, ready, and our cabin occupants are inured to circumstances from the knowledge that they must in their helplessness make the best of what may be their fortune, and that enjoying the pleasures, they must submit to the inconveniences that may be their lot. About eight bells the swell increases, indicating some dura- tion of wind, but in what direction the irregularity of its motion effectually conceals. The pace of our little vessel increases, hitherto wafted, she is now driven with irresistible impulse to encounter forces evidently more intent upon their secret mission than consideration for any such trifles as should attempt to divert them from their purpose or challenge them to issue. As they move along, gradually obtaining regularity of motion, the seas hastily dress in their white mantles to greet the storm king in befitting array, exhibiting a sharpness of outline and briskness of motion and feature that the initiated comprehend. " That mystic spell Which none but sailors know or feel, And none but they can tell." The clouds that had been careering away to join the pageant, have gradually merged into an unbroken canopy of grey, contracting the horizon into unusual limits. The From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. . 93 water assumes a deep leaden intensity of colour and virulence of weight. The wind carries into drift the tops of the seas as they comb over, as ashore she toys with tiles and chimney pots, but oh ! landsman, without conveying the injury to which your manly form is subjected. She merely bathes as she fondles us in pearly moisture, filling our lungs with richest elixir, but you who neglect to visit -her in her realms of play, she subjects to missiles of destruction. As the gale heads us, and we know it must come heavier every moment, we stow and make fast everything about the decks, house topmasts, run in bowsprit irons to the gam- moning, and under the foretrysail she stands as snugly as a seagull with head under his wing. The glass continues to fall, and at ten P. M., totters at 28° 10. The "roaring forties" are proverbially inhospitable and inconstant quarters, even in summer, though summer blows are not often very long continued or very serious to encounter when well off the land. At eleven P. M. there are fresh hands at the bellows, the gale continues to harden, with heavy squalls, shifting from southeast upwards, and becoming wickeder as it shifts. Mid- night, sea very high and squalls furious, spray blinding and side lights continually extinguished until we shift them to the after rigging, where they have a little better luck. Our little ship now and then puts head under a comber, 94 Homeward Bound, and like a duck, throws the water over her decks, shaking her tail as she points her bill to the clouds. u Away, away, what nectar spray she flings about her prow, What diamonds flash in every splash that drips upon her brow. She knows she bears a soul that dares and loves the dark rough sea, More sail, I cry ; let, let her fly, this is the hour for me." At micjnight the master comes down dripping in his sou'wester, mackintosh and sea boots to look at his barometer, and finds the doctor in anything but a placid frame of mind, having had a discussion upon religious subjects with the mistress, and been as usual, worsted. "Ye gentlemen of England who dwell at home at ease," he exclaims, in reply to the master's greeting. (i Hello ! Doctor, what's tearing you now, old fellow? Has the mistress been trying to fit you out in stole and cassock, or has she invoked the wrath of the elements upon your erring soul ? You seem quite ennuye. "• Lusisti satis, edisti satis, atque bibisti ; Tempus abire tibi est — ' ' eh? Why dont you aspire to a That blessed mood In which the burden of the mystery, The heavy and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world Is lightened." From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. 95 Let's freshen the nip with a glass of that wholesome beverage, that the proudest admiral in England's proud navy does not disdain. What shall it be, Scotch or Irish ? Or with your nautical propensities and contrary mood, shall it be rum? " Poteen, master, poteen, gra gal machree." The steward lowers the rack, the metheglin is poured out, the Doctor, with his usual "slainte," swallows the nectar and is seized with a violent fit of coughing, on recovering from which, he exclaims, to the general amusement, that u he feels as if a torchlight procession had marched into his lungs." " Now, Doctor," says the master, " what of the sneer with which you quoted Dibdin so inopportunely on my coming down stairs?" " I'd rather not master, I think the poteen has given me a lesson in the little incident that has occurred, at any rate it has exorcised the demon of contraryness, as you call it, with which you were pleased to charge me. I did feel like a southerly wind in the bread -locker, but now, like the jar of Pandora, when she replaced the cover." "What! Doctor, all your ills, gout, rheumatism, envy, hatred and malice, and all uncharitableness, all gone but hope, remember the tale she told." " Don't master, don't destroy the happy illusion, delicious it is if flattering, and for a moment. How's the glass? " "It hangs at 28° 10. No prospect of any favorable change at present, though it cannot well be lower than it is. It is now, however, blowing very hard indeed, and the sea is still rising." 96 Homeward Bound, Doctor. — What force do you give the wind as it blows at present ? Master. — Something between eleven and twelve. Doctor. — How have these gradations been adjusted, and what do they represent ? Master. — Sir Francis Beaufort was directed by the Lords of the Admiralty to prepare a schedule or scale for the general use of the navy, which he did as follows : Calm. 6 Strong Breeze. 1 Light Air. 7 Moderate Gale. 2 Light Breeze. 8 Fresh Gale. 3 Gentle Breeze. 9 Strong Gale. 4 Moderate Breeze. 10 Whole Gale. 5 Fresh Breeze. 11 Storm. 12 Hurricane. The merchant service adhere to the old phraseology and generally ignore the figures. Doctor. — Is this blow of West India origin, think you? Master. — I should scarcely venture an opinion, except that it is rather an early hatching of so strong a bird. Of 127 hurricanes experienced in the Gulf of Mexico during a period of 354 years, the seasons of occurrence were as follows : January, 0. June, 4. February, 1. July, 15. March, 2. August, 36. From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. 97 September, 25. November, 1. October, 27. December, 2. There is an old sailor's rhyme that fastens the seasons of their prevalence upon the memory, thus : June, too soon, July, stand by, August, lookout you must ; September, remember, October, all over. West India hurricanes are occasionally of peculiar viru- lence. In one experienced in 1780, large rocks were lifted from a depth of seven fathoms, and cast high and dry upon the shore. Doctor. — Within our own recollection, master, we have had elsewhere nearly similar experience. You remember Calcutta in 1864, October the fourth, the Bore rose to a height of thirty feet, ships were carried far away from the Hoogly river, and left dry and immovable. If I re- member rightly, more than a hundred vessels were lost or disabled, and some 60,000 lives lost. Master. — I well remember the circumstances, as well as a yarn told me in connection therewith by a partner in the most important mercantile house there. One of their tow- boats had disappeared altogether. Some two years afterwards colouring matter was observed to float upon the surface of the water in one of the tanks for the city's supply. Upon a 98 Homeward Bound, thorough examination into the cause, my friend's tugboat was found in the bottom of the tank, the colouring matter had been generated in the brass journals and fittings of the engines. Doctor. — In 1866 Bermuda suffered dreadfully from a hurricane, six hundred houses were destroyed and some seventy lives lost with many vessels. Master. — In a Bore in the Rio de la Plata, the barque "Urgent," was carried from her moorings and left accord- ing to her master's account a mile or so from where she would float at high water. She was there sold for the ridiculous sum of some few hundred dollars, and when her master left, was undergoing transformation to a hotel, and the " ladies were riding round her." This I can vouch for as she belonged to my firm. The great storm that raged in England, 26th and 27th November, 1703, seems to have been unparalleled since. Immense devastation was occasioned. The loss in London alone was estimated at £2,000,000. The number of persons drowned in floods of the Severn and Thames and on the coast of Holland, and in ships blown from their anchors, was estimated at upwards of 8,000. Twelve men-of-war with 1,800 men foundered off the coast. 17,000 trees in Kent alone were torn from their roots. The Eddystone light- house with Winstanley its contriver were destroyed. The From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. 99 Bishop of Bath and Wells and his wife were killed in bed. 15,000 sheep in one flooded district were drowned. The elements sang a requiem throughout Europe upon the death of Oliver Cromwell, and Richard the Second's two queens brought fearful tempests to the shores of England. We are now in proverbially the stormiest quarter of the stormiest of seas, so distinguished, doubtless, from the natural disarrangement of atmospheric equilibrium, caused by the prevalence of ice and the juxtaposition of the warm current of the Gulf stream, and the frigid antagonism of the polar current. The accepted theory that winds are caused by diverse distribution of atmospheric temperature and the overflow, so to speak, of cool air into a region where expansion from warmth has created a partial vacuum, is ever likely to be exemplified hereabouts, but the shifting character of the present gale from the southward to the eastward, and still upwards, discloses the marked feature of the hurricane or cyclone in our hemisphere ; below the equator, its direction would be reversed. Doctor. — Of course while both air and water are in a state of unstable equilibrium, there will be winds in the one and currents in the other. Master. — The sea is still rising, Doctor, and is now at a » height rarely to be found at this season of the year. Doctor. — And yet, master, science teaches us, or rather, 100 Homeward Bound, they who speak in her name tell us that waves do not attain a higher altitude from trough to crest than forty feet, and this off the Cape of Good Hope. Off Cape Horn thirty-five feet is said to be the next maximum, in the north Atlantic twenty feet, while in our channel nine feet is the limit of vertical motion. Master. — Notwithstanding the sea is said to break over the lanthorn of the Eddystone Lighthouse a hundred and fifty feet from its base, urged of course, to a great extent, by the speed at which the wave travels, which in the north Atlantic is said to be twenty-two miles an hour. I am diffident in placing my experiences before the judgement of careful and cautious men of science, neverthe- less, I shall not be readily persuaded that the north Atlantic at times during the winter cannot exhibit a tableaux in which a change of opinion would be wrought. I have, myself, watched the sea in a heavy gale for hours from a passenger steamer frequently topping above the fore yard, which certainly is more than fifty feet from the deck. A sudden sensation as of a drawn bowstring having been let go — a commotion, and almost simultaneously the master is up the companion ladder. " Forestay burst, sir !" " Look alive, Selwyn ! " « Cast off tiller rope tackle falls ! " "Aye, aye, sir!" " Let go weather trysail sheet!" " Ease lee sheet handsomely and stand by it ! " " Hold on all, for your lives ! " " Hard up with the helm ! " Loosed from her From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. 101 tether, the lively little craft wears round, we can only feel it as the spray is blinding and the night dark as Erebus. Her lee rail is buried, a combing sea catches her under the weather bilge, a deluge of water, a conviction that every- thing, masts and all, have been hurled overboard, and the vessel herself irretrievably engulfed in the confusion. Down ! down ! down ! she is impelled into the seething trough. A moment's trembling resignation, then pulling herself together and recognizing the rein of her jockey in the weather helm, she leaps away from her thraldom and bounds like a maddened charger down the wind into the invisible and tor- tured unknown, pursued by her tormentors. " Meet her ! " i( Meet her with your lee helm ! " « Steady-y ! " « Ease off trysail sheet handsomely!" " Well the sheet, belay ! " " Now then, a strop round the stump of the bowsprit! " " Slack up and unhook forerunner tackles! " " Lead forward under eyes of the rigging ! " [< Hook on to the strop!" " Set them up and belay! " The masts are saved and all hands aboard. The master holds a short consul- tation with his officers, and the ship is still running before the gale, making wonderful weather of it, though now and then a frightful sea looms high above her taffrail, growling and hissing with threatening purpose, but passing under in charitable mood, leaves a chasm of awful import into which we seem to glide stern first down a phosphorescent Alp, bound for the realms of Pluto, to be again raised like 102 Homeward Bound, Eurydice, and once more committed to the deep, literally. The darkness is apalling, the demoniacal din like the laugh of furies rejoicing in our apparent helplessness. Our little witch of a craft somehow, with the coyness and tact of her sex, casts aside the rude attentions of her bearded and exasperated tormentors, and but once before the wind and sea has she* been dangerously sluiced with water which she soon emerges from under without casualty to crew or fittings as all are well secured to friendly and neighbouring supports. The risk of hauling the vessel to the wind again is not to be thought of before daylight discloses some safe opportunity, so long at least as she behaves herself so splendidly before it. The manoeuvre described occupied but a moment or two, though during such critical occurrences moments are considerably drawn out in imagination. It is on such occa- sions that a ready and courageous crew show the stuff they are made of; no laggards then, a second's indecision any- where, and consequences become serious, the skins of teeth are at a premium, for hands have full employment and brains too. It has always been our habit to be provided against possible accident ; thus with the trysail, ad- juncts for untoward circumstances are placed within reach, strops ready upon a becket, the watch tackle, where immedi- ately accessible, spare trysail sheets rove ready to hook into the clue, &c, and had we reason to have suspected any From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. 103 flaw in the stay, we should have had a preventer fitted, but on this occasion we were taken by surprise for the strain was not what it had been since we left when in a fresh breeze close hauled with topsails aloft. Ashore, a broken axle, a misplaced switch, a trivial irregularity would have been followed with certain destruction, while our difficulty, one of the most serious to be encountered at sea, but sharpened our wits and familiar- ized us with the necessity of nearness of nouse and quick decision and execution, and the storing up of these useful instruments for possible future occasions. Captain Marryat, in one of his charming stories, tells of a commander who impressed upon his midshipmen the advantages of utilizing their long and tedious night watches on deck by imagining themselves placed in every possible difficulty and studying the best and readiest way out of it, and he also recounts an occasion upon which a captured vessel repossessed by her crew was restored to her captors, as a direct result of his admonitions, by two mids in their teens. Selwyn with two quartermasters have their hands full as full can be at the tiller until daylight dawns in the eastern sky. It is strange to what freaks the mind is sometimes seduced, even in extremis, but while upon our beam ends in the trough of the sea one irresistible thought of the passage from the JEneid. 104 Homeward Bound, u Facilis descensus Averni, Noctes atque dies patet atri janua Ditis, Sed revocare gradum, superasque evadere ad auras. Hoc opus, hie labor est." By four bells (6 A. M,j the weather is more moderate, squalls lighter. and sea less vicious. "Thou boundless sparkling glorious sea, With ecstacy I gaze on thee ; And as I gaze, thy billowy roll, Wakes the deep feelings of my soul." TUESDAY, JUNE 28TH, 1881. Nothing could be grander than the sight revealed to us by daylight this morning in the magnificent heavy roll of the dark blue seas, regular as the bights on a file, towering up into sharp summits, which break into foam over towards us, running down their breasts in milky streams, fantastic tracery and light green rivulets : on they come, in majestic stateliness, high as our cross trees, threatening the uninitiated with immolation, but only to bear us upward with the gentlest and most fascinating of all motions, as a father his child upon his shoulder, to lower us again with like tenderness, "the waters a wall unto us on our right hand and on our left," far down into a dark abyss, 106 Homeward Bound, from which it would appear there can be no recovery ; the retreating roller however has really but relinquished the waif as a care to its no less considerate succeeding confederate. Danger has passed, the Vind and sea from antagonists have become allies, passing onward in accord and combining to create the most majestic as well as magnificent example of sublunary grandeur. One may experience feelings akin when wrapped in contemplation of rugged mountain scenery, but the monster rocks, however grand, are in repose, and yield not the spirit-stirring enthusiasm of motion, nor the entrancing sensations of progression in graceful curves over the fascinating terrors of the storm- tossed and restless ocean. Our damages, though not of a serious nature have caused us some delay. A jury forestay has been- tolerably well set up, and the runners having served their foreign purpose, are once more restored to their particular functions ; about the decks the injuries are inconsiderable, the weather rail is started from the tenons of the stanchions, and a plank or two in the 'lee bulwarks with a storm port shutter have disappeared. The dinghey is a little strained, but on the whole, considering the volumes of blue water that rolled over us, as we lay helpless in the trough of the sea, upon our beam ends, we have escaped marvelously. After breakfast we are enabled to give the yacht close reefed mainsail, forestay sail and bonne tless jib, and to keep her up From the Chesapeake to the Mersey, 107 once more a clean full and by as near as possible on her course. The only casualties below, were the tumbling about the nursery of two of the youngsters at once, and Bella's astonishment that they should both have come to grief simultaneously is amusing, so little do they know of our trials on deck. At noon, by dead reckoning, we find ourselves in 44° 40' north latitude, and 44° 35' west longitude, having made but eighty miles during the twenty-four hours of a N. 75° E course. During the first dog watch we have the wind from the southeast, and with smoother sea and moderate breeze, we shake out reefs and away we reach N. 66° E. In the evening topsails are again aloft, and we have fallen into the even tenor of our ways. In deference to poor Ryan's memory we have no music this evening. The master, instead, giving the men a short lecture opon the formation and mission of ICEBERGS. " They are born in the Arctic and Antarctic regions, and are formed chiefly by glaciers, which extending into the sea, form protruding artificial coast lines, huge portions of which become detached from various causes, and floating into the Polar currents, arrive in situations where they make themselves more familiar to navigators, and in the North Atlantic to numbers of passengers moving to and fro 108 Homeward Bound, between the old world and the new. We have had personal observation lately of their majesty and magnificence. These phenomena frequently attain enormous dimen- sions and extraordinary variety of outline. They have been seen towering into the air to the height of six to eight hundred feet in the shape of towers and pinnacles and fantastic sky lines, their sides wrenched by cataracts descending with deafening roar and their water line presenting a circuit of miles lashed by the waves of the ocean with a violence, creating uproar to be heard for miles. Sir John Ross measured a berg two and a half miles long, two and a fifth broad and one hundred and fifty- three feet in height, weighing by his calculations above water a hundred and fifty millions of tons, and above and below no less than fifteen hundred millions of tons. In the Greenland seas, in Baffin's Bay and Davis Straits great numbers are to be seen, on one occasion as many as three thousand in a day, and here in the Atlantic four hundred to six hundred have been seen at once. A well-known Atlantic steamship commander told the master he had upon one trip been enveloped in a fog for many hours and the cold becoming intense, and the fog so dense as scarcely to admit of his recognizing a man or object within a yard or two, he slowed down his vessel and ultimately stopped her entirely. After some time the fog lightened and soon cleared away, and he found his vessel completely surrounded From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. 109 by two hundred and fifty bergs, so close were they as to give him considerable difficulty in extricating his vessel. He attributed to Divine Providence the impulse communicated to him to stop his vessel, a rather unusual one, and is still puzzled to know how he could have got so far into their midst without accident. The whaler often seeks shelter under the lee of these masses in the violent gales occasionally to be met with during his peregrinations, and his water tanks are sometimes replenished from the pools of deliciously cool water and the limpid streams flowing as from the rock at Meribah from their sides. He hangs on to them when no bottom is within reach of his ground tackles, in doing which he incurs considerable risk. Calves or large masses are now and then dissevered, falling with great force into the water from above, and as frequently becoming detached from below rise with scarcely less violence. The "Thomas Hall" hanging to a berg in Davis Straits was struck by a calf and lifted sufficiently to show a consider- able length of keel abaft her gripe ; fortunately it collided with her in a rather invulnerable place or she must have foundered. In the spring and summer these objects are sources of great danger to vessels plying in the north Atlantic. Borne down by the polar current, they present ugly obstacles in the path of vessels, especially those driven 110 Homeward Bound. through fog at high rate of speed, and it is feared that many of the unheard-of have contributed to the formation of the shallow water upon the banks of Newfoundland, supposed to owe their origin to the rocks and debris carried in suspension by these huge masses of ice from the place of their birth, and deposited by them in their dissolution in the warm waters of the Gulf stream. Of late the leading passenger steamers adopt Lieutenant Maury's lane routes, which direct their courses outward and homewards in parallel, but differing latitudes to avoid collision, and sufficiently to the southward to clear these dangerous though expiring monsters. It is unfortunate that the great circle or shortest route between Europe and America runs through these dangerous precincts as mariners are sometimes tempted to seek in the shorter route com- pensation for the dangers to be encountered. When afloat, one -tenth of the mass is all that appears above water, and when the proportions are disarranged by the melting of the submerged part or the severing of a large calf, the object assumes a change of trim exhibiting its load water line burrowed by the wash of the sea in extraordinary peculiarity of effect. Occasionally the berg capsizes with violence, to the imminent peril of the many fishing vessels constantly engaged upon and around the banks of Newfoundland and in their neighbourhood." The "Inman" company— the second in order of estab- From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. Ill lishment in the North Atlantic Trade — was the first to practically recognize the great importance of the lane routes, as it was the first to adopt iron in the construction of the hulls, and the screw as a means of propulsion of ocean going vessels; the first to extend the boon of steamship accomodations to steerage passengers, and the first to make the detour to Queenstown, as well for their convenience, as to offer substantial benefits in postal facilities to the Governments and the public upon both sides of the Atlantic. The era of fast passages was also inaugurated by this com- pany. The steamship City of Paris as far back as Novem- ber, 1867, having made the trip from Queenstown to New York in eight days, three hours, and one minute, and the same vessel in 1869 carried H. R. H. Prince Arthur to Halifax in six days, nineteen hours, and six .minutes. Always leading in the construction of larger vessels, and the adoption, regardless of cost, of methods towards the perfection of its system, it is the only transatlantic company to retain the symmetry and beauty of form it has always so jealously guarded, and which have in modern times been so generally sacrificed apparently to the belief that the lines of the original canal boat after long experience of more recent designs, present the true features of the ocean passenger steamship. This energetic record, be it said, has been achieved without government subsidy, and during many years in competition with heavily subsidized opposi- 112 Homeward Bound, tion. If we may presume, we should like to offer the suggestion to the advocates in this country of state support versus private enterprise. But if the comparatively lean form of the fresh water carrier be out of place in a sea way, what shall we say of those ubiquitous monstrosities, the "Rover" and the "Tramp," unlike anything in Heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the water under the earth, as we shall one day fully realize when we shall be called upon to hand our obolus to old Charon. It is strange that the trade of the metal potter — aye ! and his material too, or something like it — and the skill of the tinsmith, admirable in their natural spheres, should have been symbolized in the construction of naval fabrics, and that employed heretofore in perfecting utensils for keeping liquid in, they should in the fulness of their genius be suggestive in the manufacture of vessels to keep it out. The naval constuctor may derive much in design however from the potter, the gradual rise of floor, the rounded bilge and graceful tumble home of some of his models are not unworthy of imitation in the harder metal and larger con- trivance ; and the skill and taste with which he is gifted who successfully moulds his porcelain clay, would not be out of place, if admitted generally into the larger field of naval arch- itectural design. Far be it from our intention to deny the existence of fully competent designers and builders, but From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. 113 with the disappearance of the sailing ship, sentiment seems to be vanishing and the dulce to be disheartened in the ruder competition of the utile; hence the builder must accept the situation and stifle the promptings of his genius and attainments in obedience to the vulgar indifference to all that does not directly contribute to the greed for gain. If this principle is to continue to progress as it seems to be doing elsewhere as well as in the shipowning world, and if grace and beauty must — however unnecessarily — give way to mammon, it certainly behoves those who profit by the desecration to restore to the treasury of art what has been stolen from it, by the erection and enrichment of temples where we can at least retire to worship at her shrine, when our holier sympathies need seasons of refreshing. How far the tinsmith, has improved the condition of affairs, we leave to the decision of the underwriter, and the inference to be drawn from the long record of sorrow entailed upon the relatives of those who have not only gone down to, but into the sea in ships. " When the clouds spread like a feather, Mariner, you may expect fine weather." WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29TH, 1881 And fine weather we have but the wind is unsteady and puffy, still from the southeast. The kittywakes continue to dance attendance upon us, the gale does not seem to have disconcerted them in the least. They perform their evolu- tions with their usual attractive grace and occasional plain- tive chirp. At noon we are in latitude 45° 45' north, and longitude 89° 45' west, distance run 185 miles, course N. 66° E. The day sped along without incident worthy of note till in the afternoon Lind managed to fall overboard, Jocelyn shied him the " Carte " life buoy, always ready for such occasions, encircling the binnacle, which he caught hold of From the Chesapeake to the Mersey, 115 without flutter. The vessel was at once hove upon the wind, the gig lowered, and we had him on deck in four minutes, as jolly as a sand boy in the anticipation of a glass of one water grog, but to all appearances a drowned rat. Towards evening the wind falls light and shifting round comes out from the southwest, being nearly aft we set the flying foresail and our little witch occasionally logs twelve knots with its assistance. Another sailor's saw seems likely to be verified before morning. The South wind always brings wet weather, The North wind wet and cold together ; The West wind always brings us rain, The East wind blows it back again. The Doctor entertains us with a description of THE GULF STREAM, introducing his lecture with Lieut. Maury's beauti- ful illustration. " There is a river in the ocean, in the severest droughts it never fails, and in the mightiest floods it never overflows. Its banks and its bottom are of cold water, while its current is of warm. The Gulf of Mexico is its fountain, and its mouth is in the Arctic Seas — it is the Gulf Stream. There is in the world no other such majestic flow of waters. Its current is more rapid than the Missis- sippi or the Amazon, and its volume more than a thousand times greater. Its waters as far out from the Gulf as the 116 Homeward Bound. North Carolina Coast, are of an indigo blue, they are so distinctly marked that their line of junction with the com- mon sea water may be traced with the eye." " In order to understand the nature and source of this mighty river, you must know that there are currents in the ocean as there are currents in the air. The most important of these is the Equatorial current, which is known to run in a westerly direction upon the equator, and for twenty-five degrees, more or less, on either side and parallel to it in the Pacific ocean, where it has room to pursue its natural and unmolested course. If you could obtain a light india rubber hollow ball, of say a foot in diameter, with a bar through its center, up and down which it could slide readily, if you were then to fill it with water or other liquid and cause the bar to rapidly revolve, conveying its motion to the ball, you would find that its poles or the parts through which the bar passed would move inward, and the part at the equator or outside circle of the sphere would be drawn outward in similar proportion. This is precisely the action that has made the diameter of the earth greater at the equator than at the poles, for at one time it is presumed the components of which it is formed were soft, and subject to the influence of rotation, commonly styled centrifugal force. The water upon the earth's surface is now attracted by the same irresistible agency to the equator, and there becomes agitated from the terrific speed at which the earth From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. 117 revolves, as it were from under it, (equal to a thousand miles an hour,) and assumes the flow of the Equatorial current. This stream, flowing without hindrance in the Pacific, is intercepted when land intervenes and assumes varied and tortuous courses, in obedience to the formation of the obstacles intercepting and diverting its natural flow. Crossing the Pacific it becomes distracted by the group of Islands lying south of China, a portion runs along the south coast of Australia and is lost in the Antarctic, the main portion continues its course between New Guinea and Borneo, crosses the Indian ocean until divided by the Island of Madagascar, a branch passes round through the Mozambique channel, rejoining its recently close com- panionship at the Cape of Good Hope, passing up the west coast of Africa, until reanimated by its original impulse, it again clings to the equator, and becoming impinged upon the easterly projection of South America, it is again rent asunder, half running down the. Brazil coast, the other half impelled along the coast of Guiana, through the Caribbean sea, becomes embayed in the Gulf of Mexico, where it is heated in a cauldron, receives its baptism of fire and emerges to new life as the Gulf stream. Propelled again round the southern promontory of Florida at a speed of five knots and a temperature of 86° to 88°, it takes a north- easterly course, gradually abandoning the coast of the United States. As far upwards as Hatteras it retains a speed 118 Homeward Bound, of three knots and a temperature of 80°, while at a depth of five hundred fathoms its watery conduit is but 57°. North of Cape Henry its temperature has receded 1 to 2°, while its bottom has become elevated so that the 57° tem- perature is found at a depth of one hundred fathoms. Arrived upon the banks of Newfoundland its speed has been reduced to \\ knots, but it still retains a summer heat ; here it encounters an antagonist in the frigid polar current on its way to the equator, which coming down through Davis Straits and Baffin's Bay forces it into final dismemberment, the main stream flowing into the Arctic in the direction of Spitzbergen, the other overflowing its liquid banks wafts its genial influences to the coast of Ireland and there delivering its tropical message of luxuriance, refreshed and mellowed by thousands of miles of ocean balm, it descends through the Bay of Biscay, and once more rejoins the equatorial current upon the southwest coast of Africa. Returning for a moment to the polar current, it is interesting to record its mission in diffusing its cool and refreshing breath during the fiery heat of the American summer ; its delicious baths all along the coast, and its in- valuable product of nourishing fish, which would otherwise be tasteless, if not unwholesome. On the other hand it presents to the mariner in the winter an almost impenetra- ble barrier \ it conceals his decks in snow, adds to his burden tons of ice, which accumulates wherever spray is From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. 119 precipitated and congeals his rigging into bars of iron, rendering his running gear incapable of performing its offices, and many a poor crew, bound from the sunny tropics, insufficiently clad in the improvidence of their order, it reduces to pains and penalties excruciating in their intensity. The ship " Mattie Banks," whose picture you so often see, was upon an occasion within eighty miles of New York in eighty-six days from Calcutta, seized in this inhospitable embrace, her men frostbitten, and her gear immovable, you can all guess the course her master pursued, with a genial climate under his lee, he returned within the health restor- ing influence of the Gulf stream, refreshed his weary crew, thawed his rigging, once more encountered the wintry fence and reached his destination. Is not all this more than interesting, but there is more to tell. In the first place to whom do you think we are indebted for the earliest knowledge of the existence of the Gulf stream ? to no less a personage than the whale ; he hovers and romps upon its confines, picking up the dainty morsels carried in its waters, and here his captors found him, and periodically sought him and soon discovered what he was after. "Long before Columbus set out on his voyages of dis- covery, it had given hints of its existence. Strange sea- weeds, trees, and even dead human bodies, of a race unknown to Europeans, were stranded upon the coast of Great Britain, Ireland and elsewhere; unfamiliar objects 120 Homeward Bound, were found upon the shores of the Orkneys, carved woods, such as familiarity with the Indians later, brought us into contact, bamboo canes and mats, boats made of whalebone and covered with sealskin well secured, and stranger still an Esquimaux was seen near at hand in his boat. The mainmast of the ship "Tilbury," burnt off St. Domingo, was landed upon the coast of Scotland, and strangest of all, when the length of the voyage is taken into considera- tion, casks of palm oil recognized by marks and numbers as having been lost on the west coast of Africa, were drifted upon the shores of Scotland. Carried down by the African current that had already laved the coast of England, these casks were delivered to the equatorial stream, by the agency of which they had crossed to Mexico, and by the Gulf stream were forwarded to their destination. " What has the Gulf stream done for Western Europe, and especially for our own native islands. Take a glance at the map and you will find that our latitude does not entitle us to a climate differing from that of ice-encumbered Labrador, and the civilization of the Greenlander. When have our ports been closed to commerce? And yet the St. Lawrence below our parallel, is for months shut off from communication with the outer world by an infrangible seal. The harbour of St, Johns, a hundred and twenty miles nearer the Equator than Liverpool, has been frozen and impassible as late in the season as June, and who ever From the Chesapeake to the Mersey, 121 heard that Liverpool was unable to open her dock gates to- the fleets of the world. It is this balmy breath of the tropics, mellowed and purified in its ocean transit, that has made a garden of our unhappy Ireland, that has. embellished every available space of her surface with luxuriant vegetation and beautiful and fragrant flowers, that has transplanted the tint of the peach to the cheeks of her fairest of women, enriched their overflowing cup of affection, perfected the manhood of her sons, and quickened the bright eye of intellect in both. "In climes full of sunshine though splendid the flowers," Their sighs have no freshness, their oder no worth. 'Tis the cloud and the mist of our own isle of showers That call the rich spirit of fragrancy forth." One little fissure in that slender Isthmus of Panama, one crevass, and forever the equatorial current would pursue its natural progress through the Pacific, and British gardens and French vineyards would become the haunts of the polar bear and the walrus. " ;Y |r - u r L ]] jjj J J ,r rT^h 1l ~|." Fir -itI 1, jiT^P^V jl .t"' r ,' TlK ,| ' l i^. ll il ^ -l' 1 ^ i^'JUl^Y 1 'V'bViJM.iJ 1 '''u-Vi '^"i' 1 ^ l iviiL!ju^LJ:ii,i^]iJi^ l j!ji! i l i t ::, i r!i' i 1 !. i :ij'L lu^i"^'* 1 " Dusty was the coat, Dusty was the colour, And dusty was the kiss I got frae the miller." THURSDAY, JUNE 30TH, 1881. To poor Ryan's memory the above verse is dedicated, as the last we heard him breathe in his clear tenor. This night week the poor fellow received his message to go aloft. Showery morning, but fresh and healthful, whales sporting unconcernedly around us. It is amusing to watch these apparently unwieldy monsters sporting themselves in schools, following each other, plunging and skylarking, sometimes jumping quite out of the water, and without predetermined method, falling helplessly back again with an uproar and splash commensurate with a weight and mass of sixty tons and more. At noon we are in 46° 59' north latitude, and 33° 35' west longitude, distance run 260 miles, course made good N. 73° E. From the Chesapeake to the Mersey. 123 The boys bring aft, after luncheon, two mats they had made, and very creditable they are upon so short an appren- ticeship. They are now skilled in all kinds of hempen technicalities, bowline knots, Turk's heads, selvagees, &c. The master and doctor employ the afternoon in compil- ing a list of the expeditions, so far made, to the Arctic regions. We submit the list, which is tolerably accurate, in the appendix. The piano and singing occupy us until the "wee sma' hours." Lieut. Bellot was unfortunately drowned in August while voluntarily con- veying dispatches for Sir Edward Belcher. Capt. McClure had left the "Herald" at Cape Lisbon, July 31, 1850. On the 8th of October the ship was frozen in and continued so for 188 Arctic Explorations, nine months; on the 26th of October, 1850, while on an ex- cursion party, the Captain discovered an entrance to Barrow's Straits, and thus established the existence of a northwest passage. In September, 1851, his ship was again frozen in and so remained till Lieut. Pirn imd a party from Captain Kellett's ship "Resolute," fell in with them April, 1853. The position of the " Enterprise " was still unknown. Sir Edward Belcher in April, 1854, determined to abandon his ships, and gave orders to that effect to all the Captains under his command. Captain Kellett gave similar orders to Captain McClure of the "Investigator." The vessels had been aban- doned 15th May, when the crews of the " Phoenix " and u Tal- bot, " under Capt.Inglefield arrived. On their return to England all the Captains were tried by court martial and honorably acquitted. Capt. Collinson's fate was long uncertain, and an expedition was in contemplation, when intelligence came, February 1855, that he had met the " Rattlesnake " at Fort Clarence, on 21st August, 1854, and had sailed immediately in hopes of getting up with Maguire in the "Plover," that had sailed two days previously. Capt. Collinson having failed in getting through the ice in 1850 with Capt. McClure, re- turned to Hong Hong to winter. In 1851 he passed through Prince of Wales Straits and remained in the Arctic regions without obtaining any intelligence of Franklin till July 1854, when being once more released from the ice, he sailed for Fort Clarence, where he arrived as above mentioned. Capts. Collinson and Maguire arrived in England May, 1855. 1853 — June — The second American expedition under Dr. Kane in the Advance. 2 winters, took the pack 10 days. 1853 — Dr. Rae, in the spring of 1853, again proceeded toward the magnetic pole, and in July, 1854, he reported to the admiralty that he had purchased from a party of Esquimaux a number of articles that had belonged to Sir John Franklin and his party. Sir John's star or order, part of a watch, silver spoons and forks, with crest, &c. He also reported a statement of the natives that they had met a party of white men about four winters previous, and had sold them a seal ; and four months Arctic Explorations. 189 later, in the same season they had found the bodies of 30 men, who had evidently perished by starvation in the neigh- bourhood of Great Fish River. Ur. Rae arrived in England on October 22. 1854, with the relics which have since been de- posited in Greenwich Hospital. He and his companions were awarded ^10,000 for their discovery. 1854 — Capt. Inglefield in the "Phoenix," summer cruise, in the pack 30 days. 1854 — Capt. Jenkins in H. M. S. " Talbot," summer cruise. 1855 — May 31 — The third American expedition in the "Release" and steamer "Arctic," and barque "Eringo,"and another vessel under command of Lieut. Hartstene, accompanied by Dr. Kane's brother as surgeon, sailed in search of Dr. Kane in the "Advance," (sailed June, 1853.) On the 17th May 1855, Dr. Kane and his companions abandoned the "Ad- vance," and journeyed over the ice 1300 miles to a Danish settlement. On their way home in a Danish vessel they fell in with Lieut. Hartstene, Sept. 18, and arrived with him at New York, October 11, 1855. 1855 — June — Hudson's Bay Company sent out another overland ex- pedition, directed but unaccompanied by Dr. Rae and Sir G. Back, which returned in the following September. Some further remains of the Franklin expedition were discovered. LADY FRANKLIN'S EXPEDITIONS. 1850— June 5— The "Prince Albert," Capt. Forsyth, sailed from Aberdeen to Barrow Straits. Returned unsuccessful, October 1st. 1851— June 4— The "Prince Albert," Mr. Kennedy accompanied by Lieut. Bellot of the French navy, and John Hepburn, sailed from Stromnes' to Prince Regent's Inlet. Returned October. 1852— July 6— The "Isabel," Com. Inglefield, sailed for head of Baffin's Bay, Jones Sound and the Wellington Channel, and returned in November. 1853— H. M. S. "Rattlesnake," Com. Trollope, despatched to assist the "Plover," Capt. Maguire, who succeeded Capt. 1 90 Arctic Explorations. Moore at Point Barrow, met with it in August, 1853. 1857 — The British Government declining further assistance. Lady Franklin dispatches the "Fox" in charge of Capt. McClin- tock (now Admiral Sir Leopold of the North American Station,) sailed from Aberdeen July 1st, 1857, returned Sept. 22, 1859. On May 6th, 1859, Lieut. Hobson found at Point Victory, near Cape Victoria, besides a cairn, a tin case, con- taining a paper signed, April 25th, 1848. by Capt. Fitzjames (of the Franklin expedition,) which certified that the ships "Erebus" and "Terror," on September 12th, 1846, were beset in latitude 70° 50' north, longitude 98° 23' west. That Sir John Franklin died June 11th, 184*7, and that the ships were deserted April 2 2d, 1848. Capt. McClintock continued the search and discovered skeletons and other relics. His Journal was published in December, 1859. The northwest passage was thus discovered by Sir John Franklin, by sailing down Peel and Victoria Straits, now named Franklin Straits, and Capt. McClure in sailing from Behring's Straits, and rinding an entrance into Barrow's Straits. 1860 — American expedition in schooner li United States," Dr. Hayes. One winter, two days in Melville Bay. 18*71 — June 29 — Steamer "Polaris," Capt. Hall. Two winters, frozen in September, he died November 8, crew reached Newfoundland . 1873 — Steamer "Juniata," Lieut. Merriman. Summer cruise. 1873 — Steamer " Tigress," Capt. Green. Summer cruise. The American Franklin search expedition, under Lieut. Schwatka, of the U. S. navy, in an overland expedition in the summer and autumn of .1879, discovers some human remains of the crews of the ships and other relics, amongst others he found the remains of Lieut. John Irving, of the "Terror," which he brought home to Massachusetts in September, 1880. They were sent to England and buried at Edinburgh, 1881. 1869 — June 15 — A German expedition consisting of the " Germania" and "Hansa," arrived at Pendulum Bay, Greenland, July 18th, 1869. The vessels parted company, the "Germania" arrived Arctic Explorations. 191 at Bremen, September 11th, 1870. The u Hansa" was frozen and sunk October, 18-59, the crew escaped with provisions and reached Copenhagen, September 1st, 1870. 1872 — A Norwegian arctic expedition. 1872 — A Swedish expedition under Prof. Nordenskjold, sailed from Tromso, July 21, 1872. Unsuccessful, returned during summer. 1871 — Mr. B. Legh Smith sailed to 81° 24' and discovered land to the N. E. of Spitzbergen. In other voyages he discovered under currents of warm water flowing into the Polar basin, he relieved the Swedish expedition, 1872-73. 1874 — November 17th — Mr. Disraeli consents to a new Arctic ex- pedition. ^"38,620 voted for the cost, March 5th, 1875. 187") — May 20 — Captain G. S. Nares, who had made the celebrated scientific voyage round the world in command of H. M. ship Challenger, was appointed to the command of the u A.lert,"and Capt. II. F. Stevenson to the "Discovery." Dispatches re- ceived from Disco, July 15th. The u Alert" arrived at Yalentia, October 27th, the " Discovery" at Queenstown, October 29th. Results : ships reached 83° 20 / 26" 12" May, 1876, passage to the Pole declared to be impracticable, no signs of open polar sea ; sun absent 142 days ; no Esquimaux beyond 81° 52' ; out of 120 souls, 4 deaths, (1 frostbitten, 3 scurvy ;) greatest cold 72° below zero; cost of expedition £120,000. 1875 — Capt. Allen Young, (now Sir Allen Young,) sailed in the yacht tl Pandora" June 25th, 1875, returned October 19th. 1876 — Sailed again June 2d, returned October 31st. 1878 — April — Dutch expedition sailed from Holland. 18*79 — July 8 — Mr. James Gordon Bennett's expedition, in charge of Lieut. DeLong, sailed in his yacht the ll Jeannette " for Behring's Straits. —May 6 — Another Dutch expedition in "William Barentz,'' returned to Hammerfest, Norway, September 24th. 1878— July 4— Prof. Nordenskjold in the "Vega." sailed July 4th, B ; at Port Dickson, on the Yenisei, August 6th ; at the mouth of the "Lena River," August 27th; at Yakutsk, 192 Arctic Explorations. September 22d; imprisoned in ice near Tschutshe settlement September 28th, 1878 till July L8th, 1879 ; passed east Cape Behring's Strait ; entered St. Lawrence Bay in Pacific ocean, July 20th ; reached Yokohama, September 2nd. Thus successfully discovering and practically proving the existence of the northeast Passage, chiefly at the expense of Mr. Oscar Dickson of Gothenburg. 1880 — Mr. Leigh Smith successful in another expedition in his yacht "Eira" from and to Peterhead, between June 22nd and October 12, 1880. The " Resolute" of Capt. Kellett's expedition was picked up by Capt. Henry, commanding an American whaler, and brought to New York. The American Government with kindly good will and sympathy, had the vessel thoroughly overhauled, and dispatched to England in charge of Capt. Hartstene, by whom she was presented to Her Majesty on the part of the United States Government. *Much of the above from "Haydon's'' Excellent "Dictionary of Dates." SOME OF ENGLAND'S NAVAL ENGAGEMENTS. 897 — Alfred with ten Galleys, defeated three-hundred Sail of Dan- ish Pirates. 1340 — June 24 — Edward the Third, off the coast of Holland, destroys the French Fleet taking two-hundred and thirty of their ships with tremendous slaughter. 1350 — Aug. 29 — The same King off Winchelsea, defeated the Spanish Fleet of forty large vessels, taking twenty-six of them. 1371 — The Flemings are totally defeated. 1387 — March 24 — The Earl of Arundel, captures eighty out of a Flemish Fleet of one hundred sail. 1405 — Off Milford Haven, the English defeat the French, destroy- ■ ing fifteen and capturing eight vessels. 1416 — August 15 — The Duke of Bedford, captures and destroys 500 French vessels. 1459 — The Earl of Warwick, captures in the Downs, a Spanish and Genoese fleet. 1588 — July 19 — The Spanish Armada destroyed, consisting of 132 vessels, 3,165 guns, 8,766 seamen, besides 2,088 galley slaves, 21,855 soldiers, 1,355 volunteers, and 150 monks, commanded by the Duke Medina Sidonia. The British fleet commanded by Lord Charles Howard, Sir Francis Drake, and Sir John Hawkins, consisting of little over 30 vessels. The Spanish lost 35 vessels and 13,000 men. 1591— August— Off Florez, H. M. Ship " Revenge," Sir Richard Grenville,- cousin to Sir Walter Raleigh, with 100 men was surrounded by a large Spanish fleet, fifteen several vessels, some carrying 800 men, some 500, some 200, assailed her in vain during an afternoon and night, many of which she sank. At daylight, all her powder was gone, all her pikes broken, 40 of her crew killed, 800 shot through her hull, her com- mander badly wounded, his surgeon killed while attending him, and 1,500 of the enemy succumbed to his prowess; his vessel and crew surrendered. 194 Some of England's Naval Engagements. 1652 — Nov. 29 — Off Dover, Van Tromp was defeated by admiral Blake, who was afterwards surprised and attacked by 80 against 40 of his vessels in the Downs ; the British lose several vessels and are defeated. Van Tromp sailing away in triumph, with a broom at his masthead in token of having swept the English from the seas. 1653 — February 18-2C — Blake meets Van Tromp off Portsmouth, gains a victory, taking 11 men of war and 30 merchantmen. 1653 — June 2 — Off the Foreland, Van Tromp with 100 vessels, Blake, Monk and Deane with an equal force meet. Six Dutch vessels are captured, eleven are sunk and remainder run into Calais Roads. 1653— July 31— Off the Coast of Holland, Van Tromp is killed, the Dutch striking to the British, after the loss of 30 vessels. 1656 — September — Blake captures in Cadiz two galleons, with two million "pieces of eight." 1657 — April 20 — Spanish fleet vanquished and burnt in the harbour of Santa Cruz by Blake. 1664 — December 4 — The Duke of York, afterwards James II, des- troys 130 vessels of the Bordeaux fleet. 1665— June 13— The Duke of York defeats the Dutch fleet, under Opdam, taking 18 and destroying 14 ships off Harwich. 1865 — September 4 — The Earl of Sandwich takes 12 men of war and 2 merchantmen. 1666 — June 1-4 — English and Dutch meet again ; after a drawn battle, the former have lost 9 and the Dutch 15 ships. 1666 — June 25-26 — Meet again, when the English gain brilliant laurels, the Dutch losing 4 admirals, 4,000 seamen and 24 vessels. 166*7 — June 11 — Dutch admiral De Ruyter sails up the Thames and takes some British vessels. 1671 — May 10 — Sir Edward Spragg destroys 12 Algerine ships of war. 1672 — May 28 — Off Suffolk coast, terrible engagement between English and French as allies, against the Dutch. The Duke of York commanding for England. The English lose 4 ships and the Dutch three, the latter routed and pursued to their Some of England r s Naval Engagements. 195 own coast. " The Earl of Sandwich" is blown up and many lives lost. 1673 — May 28, June 4, Aug. 11 — British fleet under Prince Rupert in several engagements defeats d'Etrees and De Ruyter. Sir E. Spragg killed. 1690 — June 30 — English and Dutch defeated by the French under Tourville. 1692 — May 19 — The French defeated under Tourville by the same, off Cape la Hogue. 1693— June 16— Off St. Vincent, English and Dutch, 23 ships, under Admiral Rooke, defeated by the French, with 160 ships. 1702 — Aug. 19 — Off Carthagena, the British and French fleets, com- manded by Admiral Benbow and Admiral Du Casse respec- tively, fought. The former, abandoned by the rest of his fleet, a chain shot shattered his leg, he w T ould not leave the quarter deck, but fought all night. In the morning the French bore away. The Admiral died at Jamaica in the following October of his wounds, previous to his death he received a letter from the gallant Du Casse, as follows : Carthagena, Aug. 22, 1702. Sir : — I had little hopes on Monday last but to have supped in your cabin, yet it pleased God to order it otherwise. I am thankful for it; as for those cowardly Captains, who deserted you, hang them up, for by G they deserve it. DU CASSE. Captains Kirby and Wade were tried by court martial and shot. 1702— October 17 — Sir Geo. Rooke, with the fleets of the English and Dutch, attacked the French and Spanish galleons off Vigo, taking several of each and much treasure. 1704 — Nov. 5 — French defeated off Malaga, losing 5 ships of war. 1708 — May 22 — Admiral Leake takes 60 French vessels, laden with provisions, in the Mediterranean. 1718 — July 31 — Sir George Byng totally defeats the Spanish fleet of 29 vessels. 1743— Feb. 11— Bloody battle off Toulon, lost by the English, through misunderstanding between Admirals Matthews and 196 Some of England 's Naval Engagements. Lescock, former dismissed the service for misconduct. 1*74*7— Admiral Anson, off Finisterre, captures the French fleet of 38 vessels of war. 174*7 — October 14 — Off Finisterre, Admiral Hawke captured from the French, 7 vessels of war. 1*755 — June 10 — Admiral Boscawen takes 2 French ships of war. 1*757 — October 21 — Three English vessels defeat 7 Frenchmen off Cape Francoise, 1758 and 1759 — French are defeated in the East Indies by Admiral Pocock. 1759 — August 18 — Boscawen defeats the French off Lagos. 1759 — November 20 — Hawke defeats the French fleet in Quiberon Bay under Conflans, destroying a projected invasion of England. 1762— October 9 — Keppel takes 3 French frigates, and a fleet of merchantmen. 1776 — Oct. 11 — Lord Howe destroys Provincial force on Lake Champlain. 1778— June 16-17— The saucy a Arethusa," 32 guns, off Ushant, after two hours conflict with "La Belle Poule," causes her to fly. 1778 — July 27 — Drawn battle between Keppel and d'Orvilliers. 1779 — American force of New England totally destroyed. 1780 — January 16-17 — Admiral Rodney, off St. Vincent, defeats the Spanish fleet under Don Langara, capturing 6 ships with the Admiral himself. 1780 — April 16 — At St. Jago, Mons Sufferin defeated by Commodore Johnstone. 1781 — August 5— -Admiral Parker and the Dutch Admiral Zoutman meet on the Dogger Bank, 400 killed on each side. 1782 — April 12 — Rodney attacks French fleet in West Indies, bound to attack Jamaica, takes 5 ships of the line, and sends De Grasse prisoner to England. 1782 — September 13 — Combined fleets of France and Spain signally defeated in the Bay of Gibraltar. 1782 — February 17 — Sir Edward Hughes in the East Indies with 9 ships, meets the French with 11. Some of England's Naval Engagements. 197 1732 — April 12 — 11 ships to 18, and is completely victorious in both. 1782 — July G — Off Trimcomalee, 12 to 15 and carries the day, killing 1000 Frenchmen. 1783 — June 20 — Again victorious. 1794 — June 1 — Off Ushant Lord Howe defeats the French, taking 6 ships of war sinking another. 1795 — March 8 — Sir Edward Pellew took 15 sail, burnt 7 out of a fleet of 35 sail and transports. 1795 — March 14 — Admiral Hotham defeats French fleet, taking 2 ships of war. 1795— June 7 — Admiral Cornwallis takes 8 transports convoyed by 3 French ships of war. 1795 — June 19 — 11 Dutch East Indiamen taken by the u Sceptre," and some armed East Indiamen. 1795— June 23— Lord Bridport defeats the French fleet off 1' Orient, taking 3 ships of the line. 1796 — August 17 — Dutch squadron, under Admiral Lucas, taken by Sir George Elphinstone in Saldanha Bay. 1797 — February 14 — Sir John Jervis with the Mediterranean fleet of 15 sail defeated the Spanish fleet of 27 ships of the line off St. Vincent, taking 4 ships and sinking many. Nelson was in this engagement. 1797 — February 14 — Unsuccessful attack on Santa Cruz. Here Nelson loses his right arm. 1797 — October 11 — Admiral Duncan defeats the Dutch fleet off Camperdown, near the Texel, under De Winter, taking and destroying 15 vessels. 179 8 — Aug 1 — Battle of the Nile, (Aboukir). French under Brueys and the British under Sir Horatio Nelson. 9 French line of battle ships taken, 2 burnt, and 2 escaped. The French Admiral's ship "L'Orient," with 1,000 men on board blew up, only 70 or 80 amongst whom Bruey's was not, escaped. It was here Nelson exclaimed on commencing the engage- ment, "Victory or Westminster Abbey." 1798— Oct. 12-Off the coast of Ireland, a French fleet of 9 sail, with troops intended as succour for the Irish rebellion, beaten by Sir John Borlaise Warren and 5 vessels captured. 198 Some of England's Naval Engagements. 1799 — Aug. 30 — The Texel fleet of 12 ships and 13 Indiamen, sur- renders to Admiral Mitchell. 1800 — July 29 — The French gun brig a Cerbere," with 87 men and and 7 guns, in the harbour of L' Orient, within pistol shot of three batteries, was captured in a most daring manner, by Lieut. Jeremiah Coghlan, in a cutter with 19 companions, aided by two boats, one commanded by midshipman Paddon. The prize was towed out under a heavy but ineffectual fire from the batteries. 1801 — April 2 — Copenhagen bombarded by the English fleet, under Lord Nelson and Admiral Parker, and out of 23 ships of the line, 18 were taken or destroyed. 1801 — July 6 — Gibraltar Bay, engagement between British and French fleets. The u Hannibal " of 74 guns was lost to the British. 1801 — July 12— Off Cadiz, Sir James Saumarez beats the French and Spanish fleets, capturing 1 vessel. 1805— July 22— Off Ferrol, Sir Robert Calder, with 15 sail, defeats the French and Spanish fleets of 20 vessels, taking 2 ships. 1805— October 21— Trafalgar. A British fleet of 27 ships, under Admiral Lord Nelson, who was killed, and succeeded by Lord Collingwood, defeats the combined fleets of France with 18 ships, and the Spanish with 15 ships, under command of Admiral Villineuve, and two Spanish Admirals, all of whom were captured, and 19 of their vessels taken, sunk or de- stroyed. 1805 — Nov. 4 — Off Cape Ortegal, Sir R. Strachan, with 4 sail, captures 4 French ships of war. 1806— Feb. 6 — In the West Indies, the French defeated by Sir T. Duckworth, 3 sail of the line captured, 2 driven ashore. 1806— March 13 — Sir John Borlaise Warren captures 2 French ships. 1807 — Feb. 17 — Passage of the .Dardanelles effected by Sir John Duckworth, the castles of Sestos and Abydos hurling down stone shot upon the vessels. 1807 — Sept. 7— Copenhagen. After 3 days bombardment the City of Copenhagen and the Danish fleet surrender to Admiral Some of England's Naval Engagements. 199 Gambier and Lord Cathcart, consisting of 18 sail of the line, 15 frigates, 6 brigs, 25 gunboats, with immense naval stores, 1808 — Sept. 3 — The Russian fleet surrenders in the Tagus to the British. 1809 — April 11-12 — Basque Roads, 4 sail of the line surrender to Admiral Lord Gambier. 1809 — July — Sir J. Saumarez captures two Russian flotillas of numerous vessels. 1809 — October 25 — Lord Collingwood drives ashore several French vessels, two burnt by their defenders next day. 1809— November 1— The boats of the "Tigre," " Cumberland," »« Volonlaire," "Apollo," "Topaze," "Philomel," "Scout" and "Tuscan," in command of Lieut. John Tailour, take and destroy 11 armed vessels in Rosas Bay. 1809 — December 18 — La " Loire " and "La Seine," French frigates, destroyed by Admiral Sir A. Cochrane. 1810 — May 3 — The frigate "Spartan" gallantly engages a large French force in the Bay of Naples. 1810 — May 12 — Action between the " Tribune " and 4 Danish brigs. 1810 — July 17 — 11 vessels taken or destroyed by the " Armide " and "Cadmus," Isle of Rhe. 1811 — January 16 — Captain Barrett in the merchantman "Cumber- land" with 26 men defeats 4 privateers, and takes 1 ?0 prisoners. 1811 — February 22 — 22 vessels from Otranto taken by the "Cer- berus" and "Active." 1811 — March 13 — Capt. Hosteinthe "Amphion," with the "Active," and "Cerberus," frigates, and "Volage," 22 gun ship, defeats a Franco Venetian squadron which attacked him, capturing the "Corona" and "Bellona." 1811 — March 25 — French frigate "Amazon" destroyed off Cape Bar- fleur. 1811 — May 1 — Two French store ships burned in Sagone Bay by Capt. Barrie. 1811— May Ik— British sloop "Little Belt" and American ship "President." 1811 — May 20— Three British frigates, under Captain Schomberg, engage three larger French with troops, capturing two. 200 Some of England's Naval Engagements. 1811— July— The "Thames' 7 and " Cephalus " capture 36 French vessels. 1811 — Sept. 21 — The frigate " Naiad " attacked in the presence of Napoleon Bonaparte, by 7 armed praams, gallantly repulses them. 1812 — Aug. 19 — "Guerriere," 46 guns of small calibre, captured by American frigate "Constitution," 54 guns, an unequal contest. 1812 — Oct. 18 — British brig "Frolic" captured by the American sloop " Wasp." 1812 — Oct. 25 — British frigate "Macedonia" taken by the American ship " United States," large vessel. 1812 — Dec. 29 — British frigate "Java" taken by the American ship "Constitution," large vessel. 1812 — Nov. 29 — The French frigates "Pauline" and " Pomone " captured by the British frigates "Alceste," "Active" and "Unite." 1812— Feb. 21— French frigate "Rivoli," 84 guns, taken by the "Victorious," 74 guns. 1812— May 22 — Off l'Orient, the "Northumberland" destroys two French frigates, &c. 1813 — Feb. 7 — British Frigate "Amelia " loses 46 men killed and 95 wounded, engaging a French frigate. 1813 — Oct. 23— French frigate "La Trave," 44 guns, taken by the the "Andromache," 38 guns. 1813 — February 25 — British sloop "Peacock" captured by the American ship " Hornet." She was so disabled that she sunk with part of her crew. 1813 — June 1 — American frigate "Chesapeake," 50 guns 376 men, taken by the " Shannon," 38 guns 330 men. 1813 — June 3 — American ships "Growler" and "Eagle " taken by British gunboats. 1813 — August 4 — American ship "Argus" taken by the British sloop " Pelican." 1814 — March 29 — American frigate "Essex" captured by the "Phebe" and "Cherub." 1814 — September 8 — British sloop "Avon " sunk by American sloop "Wasp." Some of England s Naval Engagements. 201 1814 — September 11 — Lake Champlain, British squadron captured by the American after a severe conflict. 1814 — January 15 — American ship " President " captured by the 11 Endymion." 1814 — Jan. 6 — French frigate "Ceres" captured by the "Tagus.'" 1814 — Jan. 1G — French frigates "Alcmene " and 0. > < Q Z > Q I- UJ CO 5: ui ec < < o > < UJ X < cc o QQ Q. UJ 0. X =D C Ll UJ O > -J 1- CO — 1 UJ CO z UJ o u CC HO * 1 | co | joMTf : : so in S3 O six inch. 1 < u Twelve inch. 18 tons. 18 tons. 6 inch. d • ^ ^ ^ ^ T^ ^ « • CO •+ j '. CO CO <* • • -t* aCO^^M^MMmeC^COHNNHNNWH j-hoco^w^^^m;oocoo^oo es CL r^— * cl P 9 -m c OT^.^O bJO^ 43 0> O £-H.~||e.s £SuW Q UJ CM 00 h- 00 < m " m -i > Q. > < a 2 2 < CO > D h- LU co s UJ > < UJ X o 2 2 < 00 Si x uj O CO -J UJ CO 2 UJ o UJ cc HO Jb- ^J C/3 t* -^ rt* 00 (N00 O Hn -m CO 000000 00 00 CO CO CO CO CO CO O t^OOOO I OCia Oi Ci O CO 00 00 00 00 j>- moooooooo i^ CO .^ .^ , ^ ^ . ^ CO CO ^ t* C O O ro ^•*-> ooffiuS Armament of French Vessels. 205 o CO -J LU CO CO LU -1 > =3 00 Q LU UJ 00 < o -J Q- 1- Q Q Z Z < < 1- J -1 UJ =3 UJ 00 h- ^ CO C>J 00 00 z mm O > QC > mm < a Z UJ 2 X O DC z < LU cc > Lu _J > < LU X o d HO o & oo tJi Tt M N !M N -^ X CO 00 O C L A . O tt M .*0 -t Ci O Tt CM . ,-1 i— I r-H rH CM • . MH-t o o CM CS| Tfi TjH Tf rf CM O-t -t lOifllNMMNCOQOflOO^^^^QOXCOOOOO J>I>J>i-I>J>'NiHlNi-l!Ni-!|NHlWeo|^ HNHjM H(NmI^ HpHN d o d.ts S g- d o 3 d o^ d j u to P aj ct £ g : C >T3 W)3 £,£ W)U d cu£ J O « «; 3 rt rt - c OUCO««J3rtrt 3««™«0^ 206 Armament of French Vessels. u. • to O fl M 00 00 00 00t-J>J>(M cq C3 3 PQ r ~ l l "~ r " H j 00 G UJ UJ CO < I d CO j -^ ^ rf CO CD CO • H 1 CO < O £ ~J h- P H|MHlMrt|lMrt|(r;H|(N H|(NH)lM a. O OOOOOtjh^t^OOGO^^O© Q Z NN(M.M(NHrtrH^^COM cc > < Q UJ X S O cc Z < UJ cc > u. a. > -J > < UJ "a c J c 3.S 3 2* 1 13 £ B ^ »■ H + ; c JOS 3 J 3 5 < 5 is 3 £ X 5 u ;l 3 T ic ) a s> b * a 3 j 3 : 3 r c 5 Q 5 ^