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TRAVELS &C

VOYAGE from BRISTOL to NEW-YORK

HAVING formed the resolution of visiting the United States, I repaired, December 15, 1797, from Salisbury to Bristol, with a view of embarking on board a Snow of two hundred tons, which lay at the Quay, and was bound to New-York. The Captain had purposed to sail the 20th of the same month, but it was not before January 7th of the new year, that the vessel moved from the wharf, when the spring-tide enabled her to proceed down the river.

For my passage, which was in the steerage, I had paid seven guineas to the merchants who chartered the vessel, and my mess, which was with two young gentlemen of my acquaintance, cost me only three pounds more. But, with this money, besides provisions, we purchased a stove, which, during the voyage, was a treasure to us. It not only fortified us against the cold, but we cooked our victuals upon it; and the drawer which was designed to hold the ashes, made an admirable oven.

Hence there was never any occasion for us to have recourse to the caboose; but, on the contrary, when the frequent gales of wind which we experienced caused the sea to break over the vessel, the cabin-boy solicited leave to dress his dinner on our fire. In relating these circumstances, I must claim the indulgence of the reader not to rank me among the courtiers of Alcinous; men, fruges consumere nati. My only motive is to suggest to the enterprising traveller at how small an expence he may be enabled to cross the Atlantic.

The cabin was by no means an enviable place. It offered neither accommodation nor society. Its passengers consisted of an Unitarian priest and family, and two itinerant merchants. The steerage groupe was composed of a good, jolly, Somersetshire farmer and his housekeeper, who were going to settle in Pennsylvania, of the two young gentlemen I have already mentioned, and myself. Having repeatedly crossed the Equator, and doubled the Cape of Good Hope, there is no occasion for me to say that the ocean was familiar to me; and that, while the other passengers were sick and dejected, I was in health and good spirits. To the roll of the vessel I was fully accustomed; but my companions not having gotten their sea legs on board, tumbled grievously about the decks. The library which I had brought with me,

consisted of nearly three hundred volumes, and would have endeared me to any place. The Muses, whom I never ceased to woo, blessed me, I thought, not infrequently, with their nightly visitations; and I soothed my mind to tranquillity with the fancied harmony of my verse.

Ridentur mala qui componunt carmina: verum
Gaudent scribentes, et se venerantur, et ultro,
Si taceas, laudant; quidquid scripsere, beati.

HOR.*

Being an old sailor, I had provided myself with a cot, which, by making me insensible to the roll of the vessel, would, I thought, render my sleep more tranquil and undisturbed than a cabin. But I cannot say my slumbers the first night were very soft; for, hanging in the wake of the hatchway, the breeze from the deck made my situation very unpleasant. Foreseeing also that I was exposed to the deluge of every sea the brig should ship on the passage, I unhung my cot, and put it into a spare fore and aft cabin, which, to my satisfaction, I found, afterwards, was the only dry one in the steerage. The wind being favourable on getting under weigh, we profited from the occasion by shaking out the reefs, and shewing all our canvass to the breeze.

[* Epist., II, 2, 106.]

The old housekeeper, the very type of Dame Leonarda in Gil Blas, was the first among the passengers that began to hold up her head; and the fourth day of our voyage she murdered an old hen to regale a poor sick gentleman, who thought he could relish some chicken broth. We had scarcely been out a week, when we experienced a gale of wind that was not less disastrous than tremendous. A sea which broke over the quarter washed a hencoop from its lashing, and drowned nearly three dozen of fowls. But it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good. The sailors made the fowls into an huge sea-pye of three decks, which they called the United States Man of War, and fed on it eagerly.

There was a carter in the vessel, who came on board to work his passage; but he did very little work. Whenever a porpoise or even a gull was visible, he considered it the presage of a storm, and became himself invisible till it was over. A report being circulated that the rats had left the vessel when in harbour, Coster Pearman concluded that they had done it by instinct; and, as an opinion prevails among sailors that a ship, on such an event, never gets safe to her port of desination, the booby gave himself up for lost. But hearing one night a rat scratch against the vessel's side, he ran upon deck in his shirt to proclaim

it to the sailors, calling out with a joyful tone of voice, "Whoa! hoa! hoa! a rat! a rat!

The two Brothers was a miserably sailing tub, and her passage a most tedious one. Head winds constantly prevailed, and scarcely a week elapsed without our lying-to more than once. To scud her was impracticable, as she would not steer small, and several times the Captain thought she was going to founder. Her cargo, which consisted of mill stones and old iron, made her strain so with rolling, that incessant pumping could hardly keep her free. She seemed to be fitted out by the parish; there was not a rope on board strong enough to hang a cat with. She had only one suit of sails, not a single spar, and her cordage was old. If a sail was split by the wind, there was no other alternative but to mend it; and when, after being out six weeks, we had sprung our fore top mast, we were compelled to reef it. The same day, I remember, we fell in with a schooner from New York, which we spoke. It was on the 18th of February. She was bound to St. Sebastian. The seamen being employed, I volunteered my services to pull an oar on board her, which were readily accepted. Her Captain received us politely, and regaled us with some cyder. She had left port only a fortnight; but it took the ill-fated Two Brothers a month to get thither. We parted with regret. The Captain of her

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