Beginning of sea stories—sails with Captain Truesdell for the West-Indies—feelings on leaving the American shore—sun-set at sea—shake hands with a French frigate—a storm—old Neptune—a bottle or a shave—caboose—Peter gets two feathers in his cap—St. Bartholomews—climate—slaves—oranges—turtle—a small pig, “but dam’ old”—weigh anchor for New York—“sail ho!”—a wreck—a sailor on a buoy—get him aboard—his story—gets well, and turns out to be an enormous swearer—couldn’t draw a breath without an oath—approach to New York—quarantine—pass the Narrows—drop anchor—rejoicing times—Peter jumps ashore “a free nigger.” Author. “Where do you hail from to day, Peter?”
Peter. “From the street, where I’ve found some folks that makes me feel bad.”
A. “What now, Peter?”
P. “Why, there’s some folks that feels envious and flings this in my face—’Oh! you’ve got to be a mighty big nigger lately, han’t ye? and you’re agoin’ to have your life wrote.’ And this comes principally from people of my own colour, only now and then a white person flings in somethin’ to make it go glib; but the white folk round here generally treat me very kindly.”
A. “Well, don’t revenge yourself, Peter; bear it like a man and a christian. Now let us launch out on the deep.”
P. Well, we’ll weigh anchor,—but it won’t do for me to tell every thing that happened to me in my sea v’iges, for ‘twould fill fifty books; and so I’ll only tell some things that always seemed to please folks more’n the rest:
I followed the North River all that summer I run away, and in the fall of that year Captain John Truesdell sold his sloop and engaged to go out to sea as master of a large vessel for a company of New York merchants.
“So, on the 22d of October, 1806, at nine o’clock we weighed anchor for St. Bartholomews, and bore away for the Narrows. Arter we’d got out some ways, I turned back to take one look at my old native land, and I felt kind’a streaked, and sorry and grieved, and you may say I felt kind’a rejoiced tu, for if I was a goin’ away from home and country, out on the wide waters, I’d got my liberty, and was every day gettin’ it stronger.
“We had a fine ship; she was one of the largest vessels in port, and she carried twenty guns, for she was rigged to sail for any port, and fight our own way. We had thirty-seven able-bodied men besides officers; and in all, with some officers, about fifty men aboard. When we’d been out nearly two days, towards night, we looked off ashore, and the land looked bluer and bluer, till all on it disappeared, and nothin’ could be seen but a wide waste of waters, blue as any thing, and the sun set jist as though it fell into a bed of gold; and when the moon riz she looked jist as though she come up out of the ocean; and the next mornin’, when the mornin’ star rose, he looked like a red hot cinder out of a furnace. Well, we all looked till we got out of sight of land, and then some went to cryin’ and I felt rather ticklish; but most on us went to findin’ out some amusements. The sails was all filled handsome, and she bounded over the waters jist like a bird. Some on us went to playin’ cards, some dice, and some a tellin’ stories, and he that told the fattest story was the best feller.
“Next day ’bout nine in the mornin’, we spied a French frigate on our larboard bow, bearin’ right down upon us, and first she hailed, “ship ahoy!” Captain answered, and the frigate’s captain says, “what ship?” “Sally Ann, from New York.” The Frenchman hollered, “drop your peak and come under our lee.” And he did, and he come on board our ship with twelve men, and captain took ’em down into the cabin, and hollers for me, and says, ‘bring twelve bottles of madeira;” and so I did, and stepped back and listened, and there they talked and jabbered, and I couldn’t understand ’em any more’n a parcel of skunk blackbirds; but our captain could talk some French. Well, they stayed aboard I guess, two hours, and examined the ship all through, and then they left, and boarded their ship, and they fired us two guns, and we answered ’em with two stout ones, and then we bore off under a stiff breeze. This is what sailors calls shakin’ hands, and wishin’ good luck, this firin’ salutes.
“The fifth day about ten o’clock A.M. there comes up a tremendous thunder storm, and the waves run mountain high, and it blowed as though the heavens and arth was a comin’ together; and the wind and storm riz till two o’clock in the arternoon, and increased; and we drew an ile cloth over the hatch comin’s and companion way. And all the sails was took down, every rag on ’em, and we sailed under bare poles; and the log was flung out, and we found we was a runnin’ at the rate of fifteen knots an hour; and there come a sea and swept every thing fore and aft, and it took me, for I’d just come out of my caboose, and swept my feet right from under me, but I hung fast to the shrouds; and there wave arter wave beat agin us, and swept over us clean. And oh! dear me suz, the lightnin’ struck on the water and sissed like hot iron flung in, and the thunder crashed like a fallin’ mountain, and the sailors acted some on ’em pretty decent, and the rest on ’em like crazy folks. They ripped, and swore, and cussed, and tore distressedly; and one old feller up aloft reefin’ sail, his head was white as flax, cussed his Maker, ‘cause he didn’t send it harder.
“Oh! how I trembled when I heard him! Why he scart me a thousand times worse than the lightnin’. ‘Bout nine at night we tries the pumps, and finds three feet water in the bold, and then eight men went to pumpin’ till the pumps sucked, and the captain looked pretty serious I tell ye; and ’bout twelve o’ clock the storm went down, and all was quiet, only the sea, and that was distressedly angry; and the next mornin’ ’twas as calm, as the softest evenin’ ye ever see.
“Captain comes round and says, ‘boys, old Neptune will be round to-day, and make every one pay his bottle or be shaved,’ and sure enough, ’bout eleven the old feller comes aboard with an old tarpaulin hat on, and his jacket and breeches all tore to strings, and the water running off on him, and says, ‘captain you got any of my boys aboard?’ ‘Yis, here’s one;’ and he p’inted at me. ‘Well boy, what have you got for me to-day?’ ‘A bottle of wine,’ says I; and he says ‘now I’m goin’ to swear you by the crook of your elbow, and the break of the pump, that you will let no man pass without a bottle or a shave.’ So he goes round to all on board and then goes away. The captain told me he was ‘old Neptune, and lived in the ocean;’ but I was detarmined to foller him; so on I goes arter him, and I finds him snug hid under the cathead a changin’ his clothes, and then he comes on deck, and I charged him that he was the old Neptune, and finally he confessed it, and said ’twas the way all old sailors did to make every raw hand, when they got to sich a spot in the ocean, pay his bottle or be shaved with tar, soap, and an iron razor.
“Along in the day, captain calls all hands on deck, and says, ‘we’ve had a pretty hard time boys, and new we’ll rig a new caboose, and clear up, and then we’ll splice the main brace and ’twas done quick and well, for grog was ahead.
“The captain says to me, ‘now cook, you go down and draw that ten quart pail full of wine, and give every man a half a pint; and drink and be merry boys, but let no man get drunk. Well, I got a good supper, and arter that a jollier set of fellers you never seed. We was runnin’ under a stiff breeze from N. W. and all sails well filled; and we had sea stories, and songs, and music, and all kinds of amusements, and the captain was as jolly as any body.
“Well, arter bedtime, the captain says, ‘cook, you must be my watch to-night,’ and he comes and tells me jist how to manage the helm; and he turns in, and I managed it well, for I’d managed his old sloop on the river, but this was somethin’ more of a circumstance; and afore the watch was up, I got so I could manage a ship as well as the fattest on ’em, and a tickelder feller you never see.
“In the mornin’ the hands praised me up; and the captain says, ‘why, he’s the best man aboard, for he can do my duty;’ and that made me feel good, and I got two considerable feathers in my cap that time.
“But I must hurry on. We made St. Bartholomews in nineteen days from New York, and sold cargo, and took in a load for Porto Rico, and there filled up with sugar and molasses, and put out for New York. The climate there was hot enough to scorch all the wool off a nigger’s head. The fever was ragin’ dreadfully in another part of the island, and we didn’t, any on us, pretend to go ashore much. The sand was so hot at noon ‘twould burn your feet, and the white inhabitants didn’t go out at all in the middle of the day; but the niggers didn’t seem to mind the heat at all; bare-footed, bare-headed, and half-naked; yis, more’n halt a considerable, and it seemed the hotter it was the better they liked it. But they suffered a good deal, and they’d come aboard our ship and try to make thick with the crew. They talked a broken lingo, kind’a Ginney, I s’pose; and they called white folks ‘buddee,’ and they’d say, ‘buddee give eat, and I give buddee orange.’ And so at night, they’d fetch their oranges aboard, and give a heap on ’em for a few sea-biscuit, and I tell ye, them oranges wan’t slow. One night, five or six on ’em fetched a big sea turkle aboard, and we bought him and paid a kag of biscuit for him, and he weighed two hundred and seventy pounds, and the fellers seemed dreadfully rejoiced, and patted their lips and bellies, and laughed, and kissed the captain’s feet, and laughed and seemed tickled enough, and off they went. Next day another feller come aboard, and says, ‘Cappy, you buy fat pig?’ ‘Yis, and when will you bring him?’ ‘Mornin’ Cappy.’ So, in the mornin’ he come aboard with his pig; he was small, but terrible fat; and so the captain pays him and looks at him, and says, ‘Jack, your pig is small.’ ‘Oh! massa, he’s small, but dam old.’ Oh! how the captain laughed! and he used that for a bye-word all the v’yge.
“Well, we cooked the turkle, and sich meat I never see; there was all kinds on it, and if we didn’t live fat for some days I miss my guess. I was a goin’ to throw the shell overboard, but the captain hollered and stopped me, and so he saved it and sold it in New York for a good sight of money; and finally, arter bein’ in the islands some time, we weighed anchor for New York.
“We’d got ’bout half way home, and one day the cabin boy was aloft, and he cries out, ‘Sail ho!’
“‘Where away?’ ‘Over the starboard quarter.’
“‘How big?’ ‘As big as a pail of water.’
“‘Bear down to her, helmsman, and yon cook, bring my big glass.’ So I brings it, and ’twas a big jinted thing, and ‘twould bring any thing ever so fur off as nigh as you pleased. Captain looks and says, ‘It’s a man on a buoy.’ And as we got nearer, sure enough we could see him; and the captain cries, ‘down with the small boat, man her strong, put out for him and handle him carefully.’ And bein’ pretty anxious, I was the first man aboard, and we come along side on him and lifts up his head, and he says in a weak voice, ‘Oh! my God’ don’t hurt me!!’ And we lifts him up, and still he hangs to the buoy, and we told him to let go. And he says, ‘I will, if you won’t let me fall;’ and we told him we wouldn’t, and he let go reluctantly, and we took him in; and his breast, where he lay on the buoy, was worn to the bone, where he’d hugged it, and the motion of the waves had chafed him so. Well, we got him down in a berth, and the captain tries to talk with him, but he couldn’t speak, and we changes all the clothes on him that was left, and feeds him with cracker and wine; and the captain sets and feels of his pulse, and says once in a while, ‘he’s doin’ well’: and then he fell asleep, and slept an hour as calm as a baby, and the captain told me to wash him in Castile soap-suds, and says he, ‘we’ll have a new sailor in a hurry.’
“I prepares my wash and he wakes up, and says, ‘how in the name of God did I come here?’ so we told him, and the captain says, ‘you hungry?’ ‘Yis.’ And I fed him a leetle more and washed him; and oh! how he swore, it smarted so. ‘Where’s the captain,’ says he. ‘Here.’ ‘Captain, have you got any rum?’ ? And so he ordered him some weak sling, and arter this he seemed a good deal stronger, and then the captain sets his chair down by him, and asks him who he was and where he come from?
“He says, ‘my name is Tom Wilson, and I was born in Bristol, England, and lived there till I was sixteen, and then sailed for Boston, and followed the seas twenty years, and at last was pressed aboard an English man of war in London. I escaped, and got on board a French ship, and started for America in a merchantman. We’d made ’bout half v’yge when a tremendous storm riz, and we was stove all to pieces, and every body and every thing went down, for all I know, and I took to a big cork buoy as my only hope. The last I see of the wreck was two days arter this. Well, I hung to my buoy, and floated on, and on, and it got, calm, and it got to be the fifth day, and I thought I must give up. I lost all sense enemost, and didn’t know what did happen, till I beard your boat come up, and then my heart fluttered; and now is the first time for days I know what I am about. And this is the second time I have been cast away and not a man aboard saved but myself. How long I was aboard the buoy arter I lost my sense, I can’t say, but it seems to me it was some days, but I an’t sartin. Now captain, if I get well, make me one of your men.’
“The captain says, ‘I will, Tom.’
“Well, he got up fast, and eat up ‘most all creation, he was so nigh starved; and when he got able to work ship-tackle, he turns out to be a great sailor, but an awful wicked man, for every breath heaved out an oath.
“Well, in twenty-one days from the West-Indies, we made the New York Light, and then there was rejoicin’ enough I tell ye. I know I was glad enough, and as soon as we got hauled up, I jumped ashore and the first thing says I,
“Here’s a Free Nigger.” ?