Ned Myers, or, a Life Before the Mast Part 14

I was now really on the stool of repentance. In body, I was perfectly helpless, though my mind seemed more active than it had ever been before.

I overhauled my whole life, beginning with the hour when I first got drunk, as a boy, on board the Sterling, and underrunning every sc.r.a.pe I have mentioned in this sketch of my life, with many of which I have not spoken; and all with a fidelity and truth that satisfy me that man can keep no log-book that is as accurate as his own conscience. I saw that I had been my own worst enemy, and how many excellent opportunities of getting ahead in the world, I had wantonly disregarded. Liquor lay at the root of all my calamities and misconduct, enticing me into bad company, undermining my health and strength, and blasting my hopes. I tried to pray, but did not know how; and, it appeared to me, as if I were lost, body and soul, without a hope of mercy.

My s.h.i.+pmates visited me by stealth, and I pointed out to them, as clearly as in my power, the folly, as well as the wickedness, of our contemplated mutiny. I told them we had come on board the s.h.i.+p voluntarily, and we had no right to be judges in our own case; that we should have done a cruel thing in deserting a s.h.i.+p at sea, with women and children on board; that the Malays would probably have cut our throats, and the vessel herself would have been very apt to be wrecked. Of all this mischief, we should have been the fathers, and we had every reason to be grateful that our project was defeated. The men listened attentively, and promised to abandon every thought of executing the revolt. They were as good as their words, and I heard no more of the matter.

As for my hurt, it was not easy to say what it was. The doctor was kind to me, but he could do no more than give me food and little indulgencies. As for the captain, I think he was influenced by the mate, who appeared to believe I was feigning an injury much greater than I had actually received. On board the s.h.i.+p, there was a boy, of good parentage, who had been sent out to commence his career at sea. He lived aft, and was a sort of genteel cabin-boy He could not have been more than ten or eleven years old but he proved to be a ministering angel to me. He brought me delicacies, sympathised with me, and many a time did we shed tears in company. The ladies and the admiral's children sometimes came to see me, too, manifesting much sorrow for my situation; and then it was that my conscience p.r.i.c.ked the deepest, for the injury, or risks, I had contemplated exposing them to. Altogether, the scenes I saw daily, and my own situation, softened my heart, and I began to get views of my moral deformity that were of a healthful and safe character.

I lay on that grating two months, and bitter months they were to me. The s.h.i.+p had arrived at Batavia, and the captain and mate came to see what was to be done with me. I asked to be sent to the hospital, but the mate insisted nothing was the matter with me, and asked to have me kept in the s.h.i.+p. This was done, and I went round to Terragall in her, where we landed our pa.s.sengers. These last all came and took leave of me, the admiral making me a present of a good jacket, that he had worn himself at sea, with a quant.i.ty of tobacco. I have got that jacket at this moment. The ladies spoke kindly to me, and all this gave my heart fresh pangs.

From Terragall we went to Sourabaya, where I prevailed on the captain to send me to the hospital, the mate still insisting I was merely shamming inability to work. The surgeons at Sourabaya, one of whom was a Scotchman, thought with the mate; and at the end of twenty days, I was again taken on board the s.h.i.+p, which sailed for Samarang. While at Sourabaya there were five English sailors in the hospital. These men were as forlorn and miserable as my self, death grinning in our faces at every turn. The men who were brought into the hospital one day, were often dead the next, and none of us knew whose turn would come next. We often talked together, on religious subjects, after our own uninstructed manner, and greatly did we long to find an English bible, a thing not to be had there. Then it was I thought, again, of the sermon I had heard at the Sailors' Retreat, of the forfeited promises I had made to reform; and, more than once did it cross my mind, should G.o.d permit me to return home, that I would seek out that minister, and ask his prayers and spiritual advice.

On our arrival at Samarang, the mate got a doctor from a Dutch frigate, to look at me, who declared nothing ailed me. By these means nearly all hands in the s.h.i.+p were set against me, but my four companions, and the little boy fancying that I was a skulk, and throwing labour on them. I was ordered on deck, and set to work graffing ring-bolts for the guns. Walk I could not, being obliged, literally, to crawl along the deck on my hands and knees. I suffered great pain, but got no credit for it. The work was easy enough for me, when once seated at it, but it caused me infinite suffering to move. I was not alone in being thought a skulk, however. The doctor himself was taken ill, and the mate accused him, too, very much as he did me, of s.h.i.+rking duty. Unfortunately, the poor man gave him the lie, by dying.

I was kept at the sort of duty I have mentioned until the s.h.i.+p reached Batavia again. Here a doctor came on board from another s.h.i.+p, on a visit, and my case was mentioned. The mate ordered me aft, and I crawled upon the quarter-deck to be examined. They got me into the cabin, where the strange doctor looked at me. This man said I must be operated on by a burning process, all of which was said to frighten me to duty. After this I got down into the forecastle, and positively refused to do anything more.

There I lay, abused and neglected by all but my four friends. I told the mate I suffered too much to work, and that I must be put ash.o.r.e. Suffering had made me desperate, and I cared not for the consequences.

Fortunately for me, there were two cases of fever and ague in the s.h.i.+p.

Our own doctor being dead, that of the admiral's s.h.i.+p was sent for to visit the sick. The mate seemed anxious to set evidence against me, and he asked the admiral's surgeon to come down and see me. The moment this gentleman laid eyes on me, he raised both arms, and exclaimed that they were killing me. He saw, at once, that I was no impostor, and stated as much in pretty plain language, so far as I could understand what he said.

The mate appeared to be struck with shame and contrition; and I do believe that every one on board was sorry for the treatment I had received. I took occasion to remonstrate with the mate, and to tell him of the necessity of my being sent immediately to the hospital. The man promised to represent my case to the captain, and the next day I was landed.

My two great desires were to get to the hospital and to procure a bible. I did not expect to live; one of my legs being shrivelled to half its former size, and was apparently growing worse; and could I find repose for my body and relief for my soul, I felt that I could be happy. I had heard my American s.h.i.+pmate, who was a New Yorker, a Hudson river man, say he had a bible; but I had never seen it. It lay untouched in the bottom of his chest, sailor-fas.h.i.+on. I offered this man a s.h.i.+rt for his bible; but he declined taking any pay, cheerfully giving me the book. I forced the s.h.i.+rt on him, however, as a sort of memorial of me. Now I was provided with the book, I could not read for want of spectacles. I had reached a time of life when the sight begins to fail, and I think my eyes were injured in Florida. In Sourayaba hospital I had raised a few rupees by the sale of a black silk handkerchief, and wanted now to procure a pair of spectacles. I sold a pair of boots, and adding the little sum thus raised to that which I had already, I felt myself rich and happy, in the prospect of being able to study the word of G.o.d. On quitting the s.h.i.+p, everybody, forward and aft, shook hands with me, the opinion of the man-of-war surgeon suddenly changing all their opinions of me and my conduct.

The captain appeared to regret the course things had taken, and was willing to do all he could to make me comfortable. My wages were left in a merchant's hands, and I was to receive them could I quit this island, or get out of the hospital. I was to be sent to Holland, in the latter case, and everything was to be done according to law and right. The reader is not to imagine I considered myself a suffering saint all this time. On the contrary, while I was thought an impostor, I remembered that I had shammed sickness in this very island, and, as I entered the hospital, I could not forget the circ.u.mstances under which I had been its tenant fifteen or twenty years before. Then I was in the pride of my youth and strength; and, now, as if in punishment for the deception, I was berthed, a miserable cripple, within half-a-dozen beds of that on which I was berthed when feigning an illness I did not really suffer. Under such circ.u.mstances, conscience is pretty certain to remind a sinner of his misdeeds.

The physician of the hospital put me on very low diet and gave me an ointment to "smear" myself with, as he called it; and I was ordered to remain in my berth. By means of one of the coolies of the hospital, I got a pair of spectacles from the town, and such a pair, as to size and form, that people in America regard what is left of them as a curiosity. They served my purpose, however, and enabled me to read the precious book I had obtained from my north-river s.h.i.+pmate. This book was a copy from the American Bible Society's printing-office, and if no other of their works did good, this must be taken for an exception. It has since been placed in the Society's Library, in memory of the good it has done.

My sole occupation was reading and reflecting. There I lay, in a distant island, surrounded by disease, death daily, nay hourly making his appearance, among men whose language was mostly unknown to me. It was several weeks before I was allowed even to quit my bunk. I had begun to pray before I left the s.h.i.+p, and this practice I continued, almost hourly, until I was permitted to rise. A converted Lascar was in the hospital, and seeing my occupation, he came and conversed with me, in his broken English. This man gave me a hymn-book, and one of the first hymns I read in it afforded me great consolation. It was written by a man who had been a sailor like myself, and one who had been almost as wicked as myself, but who has since done a vast deal of good, by means of precept and example.

This hymn-book I now read in common with my bible. But I cannot express the delight I felt at a copy of Pilgrim's Progress which this same Lascar gave me. That book I consider as second only to the bible. It enabled me to understand and to apply a vast deal that I found in the word of G.o.d, and set before my eyes so many motives for hope, that I began to feel Christ had died for me, as well as for the rest of the species. I thought if the thief on the cross could be saved, even one as wicked as I had been had only to repent and believe, to share in the Redeemer's mercy. All this time I fairly pined for religious instruction, and my thoughts would constantly recur to the sermon I had heard at the Sailor's Retreat, and to the clergyman who had preached it.

There was an American carpenter in the Fever Hospital, who, hearing of my state, gave me some tracts that he had brought from home with him. This man was not pious, but circ.u.mstances had made him serious; and, being about to quit the place, he was willing to administer to my wants He told me there were several Englishmen and one American in his hospital, who wanted religious consolation greatly, and he advised me to crawl over and see them; which I did, as soon as it was in my power.

At first, I thought myself too wicked to offer to pray and converse with these men, but my conscience would not let me rest until I did so. It appeared to me as if the bible had been placed in my way, as much for their use as my own, and I could not rest until I had offered them all the consolation it was in my power to bestow. I read with these men for two or three weeks; Chapman, the American, being the man who considered his own moral condition the most hopeless. When unable to go myself, I would send my books, and we had the bible and Pilgrim's Progress, watch and watch, between us.

All this time we were living, as it might be, on a b.l.o.o.d.y battle-field.

Men died in scores around us, and at the shortest notice. Batavia, at that season, was the most sickly; and, although the town was by no means as dangerous then as it had been in my former visit, it was still a sort of Golgotha, or place of skulls. More than half who entered the Fever Hospital, left it only as corpses.

Among my English a.s.sociates, as I call them, was a young Scotchman, of about five-and-twenty. This man had been present at most of our readings and conversations, though he did not appear to me as much impressed with the importance of caring for his soul, as some of the others. One day he came to take leave of me. He was to quit the hospital the following morning. I spoke to him concerning his future life, and endeavoured to awaken in him some feelings that might be permanent, he listened with proper respect, but his answers were painfully inconsiderate, though I do believe he reasoned as nine in ten of mankind reason, when they think at all on such subjects. "What's the use of my giving up so soon," he said; "I am young, and strong, and in good health, and have plenty of sea-room to leeward of me, and can fetch up when there is occasion for it. If a fellow don't live while he can, he'll never live." I read to him the parable of the wise and foolish virgins, but he left me holding the same opinion, to the last.

Directly in front of my ward was the dead-house. Thither all the bodies of those who died in the hospital were regularly carried for dissection.

Scarcely one escaped being subjected to the knife. This dead-house stood some eighty, or a hundred, yards from the hospital, and between them was an area, containing a few large trees. I was in the habit, after I got well enough to go out, to hobble to one of these trees, where I would sit for hours, reading and meditating. It was a good place to make a man reflect on the insignificance of worldly things, disease and death being all around him. I frequently saw six or eight bodies carried across this area, while sitting in it, and many were taken to the dead-house, at night. Hundreds, if not thousands, were in the hospital, and a large proportion died.

The morning of the day but one, after I had taken leave of the young Scotchman, I was sitting under a tree, as usual, when I saw some coolies carrying a dead body across the area. They pa.s.sed quite near me, and one of the coolies gave me to understand it was that of this very youth! He had been seized with the fever, a short time after he left me, and here was a sudden termination to all his plans of enjoyment and his hopes of life; his schemes of future repentance.

Such things are of frequent occurrence in that island, but this event made a very deep impression on me. It helped to strengthen me in my own resolutions, and I used it, I hope, with effect, with my companions whose lives were still spared.

All the Englishmen got well, and were discharged. Chapman, the American, however, remained, being exceedingly feeble with the disease of the country. With this poor young man, I prayed, as well as I knew how, and read, daily, to his great comfort and consolation, I believe. The reader may imagine how one dying in a strange land, surrounded by idolaters, would lean on a single countryman who was disposed to aid him. In this manner did Chap man lean on me, and all my efforts were to induce him to lean on the Saviour. He thought he had been too great a sinner to be ent.i.tled to any hope, and my great task was to overcome in him some of those stings of conscience which it had taken the grace of G.o.d to allay in myself. One day, the last time I was with him, I read the narrative of the thief on the cross. He listened to it eagerly, and when I had ended, for the first time, he displayed some signs of hope and joy. As I left him, he took leave of me, saying we should never meet again. He asked my prayers, and I promised them. I went to my own ward, and, while actually engaged in redeeming my promise, one came to tell me he had gone. He sent me a message, to say he died a happy man. The poor fellow--happy fellow, would be a better term--sent back all the books he had borrowed; and it will serve to give some idea of the condition we were in, in a temporal sense, if I add, that he also sent me a few coppers, in order that they might contribute to the comfort of his countrymen.

Chapter XIX.

About three months after the death of Chapman, I was well enough to quit the hospital. I could walk, with the aid of crutches, but had no hope of ever being a sound man again. Of course, I had an anxious desire to get home; for all my resolutions, misanthropical feelings, and resentments, had vanished in the moral change I had undergone. My health, as a whole, was now good. Temperance, abstinence, and a happy frame of mind, had proved excellent doctors; and, although I had not, and never shall, altogether, recover from the effects of my fall, I had quite done with the "horrors." The last fit of them I suffered was in the deep conviction I felt concerning my sinful state. I knew nothing of Temperance Societies--had never heard that such things existed, or, if I had, forgot it as soon as heard; and yet, unknown to myself, had joined the most effective and most permanent of all these bodies. Since my fall, I have not tasted spirituous liquors, except as medicine, and in very small quant.i.ties, nor do I now feel the least desire to drink. By the grace of G.o.d, the great curse of my life has been removed, and I have lived a perfectly sober man for the last five years. I look upon liquor as one of the great agents of the devil in destroying souls, and turn from it, almost as sensitively as I could wish to turn from sin.

I wrote to the merchant who held my wages, on the subject of quitting the hospital, but got no answer. I then resolved to go to Batavia myself, and took my discharge from the hospital, accordingly. I can truly say, I left that place, into which I had entered a miserable, heart-broken cripple, a happy man. Still, I had nothing; not even the means of seeking a livelihood. But I was lightened of the heaviest of all my burthens, and felt I could go through the world rejoicing, though, literally, moving on crutches.

The hospital is seven miles from the town, and I went this distance in a ca.n.a.l-boat, Dutch fas.h.i.+on. Many of these ca.n.a.ls exist in Java, and they have had the effect to make the island much more healthy, by draining the marshes. They told me, the ca.n.a.l I was on ran fifty miles into the interior. The work was done by the natives, but under the direction of their masters, the Dutch.

On reaching the town, I hobbled up to the merchant, who gave me a very indifferent reception. He said I had cost too much already, but that I must return to the hospital, until an opportunity offered for sending me to Holland. This I declined doing. Return to the hospital I would not, as I knew it could do no good, and my wish was to get back to America. I then went to the American consul, who treated me kindly. I was told, however, he could do nothing for me, as I had come out in a Dutch s.h.i.+p, unless I relinquished all claims to my wages, and all claims on the Dutch laws. My wages were a trifle, and I had no difficulty in relinquis.h.i.+ng them, and as for claims, I wished to present none on the laws of Holland.

The consul then saw the Dutch merchant, and the matter was arranged between them. The Plato, the very s.h.i.+p that left Helvoetsluys in company with us, was then at Batavia, taking in cargo for Bremenhaven. She had a new cap tain, and he consented to receive me as a consul's man. This matter was all settled the day I reached the town, and I was to go on board the s.h.i.+p in the morning.

I said nothing to the consul about money, but left his office with the expectation of getting some from the Dutch merchant. I had tasted no food that day, and, on reaching the merchant's, I found him on the point of going into the country; no one sleeping in the town at that season, who could help it. He took no notice of me, and I got no a.s.sistance; perhaps I was legally ent.i.tled to none. I now sat down on some boxes, and thought I would remain at that spot until morning. Sleeping in the open air, on an empty stomach, in that town, and at that season, would probably have proved my death, had I been so fortunate as to escape being murdered by the Malays for the clothes I had on. Providence took care of me. One of the clerks, a Portuguese, took pity on me, and led me to a house occupied by a negro, who had been converted to Christianity. We met with a good deal of difficulty in finding admission. The black said the English and Americans were so wicked he was afraid of them; but, finding by my discourse that I was not one of the Christian heathen, he altered his tone, and nothing was then too good for me. I was fed, and he sent for my chest, receiving with it a bed and three blankets, as a present from the charitable clerk. Thus were my prospects for that night suddenly changed for the better! I could only thank G.o.d, in my inmost heart, for all his mercies.

The old black, who was a man of some means, was also about to quit the town; but, before he went, he inquired if I had a bible. I told him yes; still, he would not rest until he had pressed upon me a large bible, in English, which language he spoke very well. This book had prayers for seamen bound up with it. It was, in fact, a sort of English prayer-book, as well as bible. This I accepted, and have now with me. As soon as the old man went away, leaving his son behind him for the moment, I began to read in my Pilgrim's Progress. The young man expressed a desire to examine the book, understanding English perfectly. After reading in it for a short time, he earnestly begged the book, telling me he had two sisters, who would be infinitely pleased to possess it. I could not refuse him, and he promised to send another book in its place, which I should find equally good. He thus left me, taking the Pilgrim's Progress with him. Half an hour later a servant brought me the promised book, which proved to be Doddridge's Rise and Progress. On looking through the pages, I found a Mexican dollar wafered between two of the leaves. All this I regarded as providential, and as a proof that the Lord would not desert me. My grat.i.tude, I hope, was in proportion. This whole household appeared to be religious, for I pa.s.sed half the night in conversing with the Malay servants, on the subject of Christianity; concerning which they had already received many just ideas. I knew that my teaching was like the blind instructing the blind; but it had the merit of coming from G.o.d, though in a degree suited to my humble claims on his grace.

In the morning, these Malays gave me breakfast, and then carried my chest and other articles to the Plato's boat. I was happy enough to find myself, once more, under the stars and stripes, where I was well received, and humanely treated. The s.h.i.+p sailed for Bremen about twenty days after I got on board her.

Of course, I could do but little on the pa.s.sage. Whenever I moved along the deck, it was by crawling, though I could work with the needle and palm. A fortnight out, the carpenter, a New York man, died. I tried to read and pray with him, but cannot say that he showed any consciousness of his true situation. We touched at St. Helena for water, and, Napoleon being then dead, had no difficulty in getting ash.o.r.e. After watering we sailed again, and reached our port in due time.

I was now in Europe, a part of the world that I had little hopes of seeing ten months before. Still it was my desire to get to America, and I was permitted to remain in the s.h.i.+p. I was treated in the kindest manner by captain Bunting, and Mr. Bowden, the mate, who gave me everything I needed. At the end of a few weeks we sailed again, for New York, where we arrived in the month of August, 1840,

I left the Plato at the quarantine ground, going to the Sailor's Retreat.

Here the physician told me I never could recover the use of my limb as I had possessed it before, but that the leg would gradually grow stronger, and that I might get along without crutches in the end. All this has turned out to be true. The pain had long before left me, weakness being now the great difficulty. The hip-joint is injured, and this in a way that still compels me to rely greatly on a stick in walking.

At the Sailor's Retreat, I again met Mr. Miller. I now, for the first time, received regular spiritual advice, and it proved to be of great benefit to me. After remaining a month at the Retreat, I determined to make an application for admission to the Sailor's Snug Harbour, a richly endowed asylum for seamen, on the same island. In order to be admitted, it was necessary to have sailed under the flag five years, and to get a character. I had sailed, with two short exceptions, thirty-four years under the flag, and I do believe in all that time, the nineteen months of imprisonment excluded, I had not been two years unattached to a s.h.i.+p. I think I must have pa.s.sed at least a quarter of a century out of sight of land.[17]

I now went up to New York, and hunted up captain Pell, with whom I had sailed in the Sully and in the Normandy. This gentleman gave me a certificate, and, as I left him, handed me a dollar. This was every cent I had on earth. Next, I found captain Witheroudt, of the Silvie de Gra.s.se who treated me in precisely the same way. I told him I had _one_ dollar already, but he insisted it should be _two_. With these two dollars in my pocket, I was pa.s.sing up Wall street, when, in looking about me, I saw the pension office. The reader will remember that I left Was.h.i.+ngton with the intention of finding Lemuel Bryant, in order to obtain his certificate, that I might get a pension for the injury received on board the Scourge.

With this project, I had connected a plan of returning to Boston, and of getting some employment in the Navy Yard. My pension-ticket had, in consequence, been made payable at Boston. My arrival at New York, and the shadding expedition, had upset all this plan; and before I went to Savannah, I had carried my pension-ticket to the agent in this Wall street office, and requested him to get another, made payable in New York. This was the last I had seen of my ticket, and almost the last I had thought of my pension. But, I now crossed the street, went into the office, and was recognised immediately. Everything was in rule, and I came out of the office with fifty-six dollars in my pockets! I had no thought of this pension, at all, in coming up to town. It was so much money showered down upon me, unexpectedly.

For a man of my habits, who kept clear of drink, I was now rich. Instead of remaining in town, however, I went immediately down to the Harbour, and presented myself to its respectable superintendant, the venerable Captain Whetten.[18] I was received into the inst.i.tution without any difficulty, and have belonged to it ever since. My entrance at Sailors' Snug Harbour took place Sept. 17, 1840; just one month after I landed at Sailors'

Retreat. The last of these places is a seamen's hospital, where men are taken in only to be cured; while the first is an asylum for worn-out mariners, for life. The last is supported by a bequest made, many years ago, by an old s.h.i.+p-master, whose remains lie in front of the building.

Knowing myself now to be berthed for the rest of my days, should I be so inclined, and should I remain worthy to receive the benefits of so excellent an inst.i.tution, I began to look about me, like a man who had settled down in the world. One of my first cares, was to acquit myself of the duty of publicly joining some church of Christ, and thus acknowledge my dependence on his redemption and mercy. Mr. Miller, he whose sermons had made so deep an impression on my mind, was living within a mile and a half of the Harbour, and to him I turned in my need. I was an Episcopalian by infant baptism, and I am still as much attached to that form of wors.h.i.+p, as to any other; but sects have little weight with me, the heart being the main-stay, under G.o.d's grace. Two of us, then, joined Mr. Miller's church; and I have ever since continued one of his communicants. I have not altogether deserted the communion in which I was baptized; occasionally communing in the church of Mr. Moore. To me, there is no difference; though I suppose more learned Christians may find materials for a quarrel, in the distinctions which exist between these two churches. I hope never to quarrel with either.

To my surprise, sometime after I was received into the Harbour, I ascertained that my sister had removed to New York, and was then living in the place. I felt it, now, to be a duty to hunt her up, and see her. This I did; and we met, again, after a separation of five-and-twenty years. She could tell me very little of my family; but I now learned, for the first time, that my father had been killed in battle. Who, or what he was, I have not been able to ascertain, beyond the facts already stated in the opening of the memoir.

I had ever retained a kind recollection of the treatment of Captain Johnston, and accident threw into my way some information concerning him.

The superintendant had put me in charge of the library of the inst.i.tution; and, one day, I overheard some visiters talking of Wisca.s.set. Upon this, I ventured to inquire after my old master, and was glad to learn that he was not only living, but in good health and circ.u.mstances. To my surprise I was told that a nephew of his was actually living within a mile of me. In September, 1842, I went to Wisca.s.set, to visit Captain Johnston, and found myself received like the repentant prodigal. The old gentleman, and his sisters, seemed glad to see me; and, I found that the former had left the seas, though he still remained a s.h.i.+p-owner; having a stout vessel of five hundred tons, which is, at this moment, named after our old craft, the Sterling.

I remained at Wisca.s.set several weeks. During this time, Captain Johnston and myself talked over old times, as a matter of course, and I told him I thought one of our old s.h.i.+pmates was still living. On his asking whom, I inquired if he remembered the youngster, of the name of Cooper, who had been in the Sterling. He answered, perfectly well, and that he supposed him to be the Captain Cooper who was then in the navy. I had thought so, too, for a long time; but happened to be on board the Hudson, at New York, when a Captain Cooper visited her. Hearing his name, I went on deck expressly to see him, and was soon satisfied it was not my old s.h.i.+pmate.

There are two Captains Cooper in the navy,--father and son,--but neither had been in the Sterling. Now, the author of many naval tales, and of the Naval History, was from Cooperstown, New York; and I had taken it into my head this was the very person who had been with us in the Sterling.

Captain Johnston thought not; but I determined to ascertain the fact, immediately on my return to New York.

Quitting Wisca.s.set, I came back to the Harbour, in the month of November, 1842. I ought to say, that the men at this inst.i.tution, who maintain good characters, can always get leave to go where they please, returning whenever they please. There is no more restraint than is necessary to comfort and good order; the object being to make old tars comfortable.

Soon after my return to the Harbour, I wrote a letter to Mr. Fenimore Cooper, and sent it to his residence, at Cooperstown, making the inquiries necessary to know if he were the person of the same family who had been in the Sterling. I got an answer, beginning in these words--"I am your old s.h.i.+pmate, Ned." Mr. Cooper informed me when he would be in town, and where he lodged.

In the spring, I got a message from Mr. Blancard, the keeper of the Globe Hotel, and the keeper, also, of Brighton, near the Harbour, to say that Mr. Cooper was in town, and wished to see me. Next day, I went up, accordingly; but did not find him in. After paying one or two visits, I was hobbling up Broadway, to go to the Globe again, when my old commander at Pensacola, Commodore Bolton, pa.s.sed down street, arm-in-arm with a stranger. I saluted the commodore, who nodded his head to me, and this induced the stranger to look round. Presently I heard "Ned!" in a voice that I knew immediately, though I had not heard it in thirty-seven years.