We had no sooner anchored off Long Wharf than Captain Allen went ashore, and in about an hour the United States Marshal, accompanied by a posse with handcuffs and shackles, came on board and demanded the prisoner. Petersen was brought on deck and delivered into his hands. But his countenance had undergone an appalling change within a few hours. He seemed suddenly to have realized the horrors of his situation. His features were pale, and his eye seemed glazed with fear as he looked upon the officers of justice, and, trembling in every limb, was assisted into the boat. A sense of his guilt, and the terrible consequences, now seemed to weigh upon his spirits. The penalty exacted by the laws for the crimes of piracy and murder stared him in the face.
We arrived in Boston on the 24th of October, 1817, having been fifty-four days on our passage from Gottenburg. I had not accumulated treasures during my wanderings, but I had improved my constitution, acquired a habit of resignation and cheerfulness which bade defiance to the freaks of fortune, gained some knowledge of the world, and rejoiced in robust health, one of the greatest of earthly blessings, and which as often cheers and enlightens the condition of the poor man, as his more fortunate fellow-mortal rolling in riches.
When paid off, I found myself in possession of means to rig myself out in decent apparel, and provide myself with other exterior appurtenances of a gentleman; and also to defray my expenses on a visit to my relations in New Hampshire, from whom I had so long been separated, and whom I longed to convince by tangible proofs that I was still in the land of the living. And thus I returned from my wanderings after an absence of nearly seven years, during which I had witnessed many eventful scenes, and had studied the page of human nature in various climes.
Notwithstanding my occasional hard fortune at sea, a seafaring life still possessed many powerful attractions. I was bound to it by a charm which I did not attempt to break. Besides, I had put my hand to the plough and I would not look back. Although I had passed many happy hours in the forecastle, free from care and responsibility, and associating with men whose minds, if may be, were uncultivated, but whose heads were well furnished and whose hearts were in the right place, yet visions of an important station on "the quarter-deck," at no distant period, were often conjured up by my imagination; and I resolved that many day should not pass before I would again brave the perils, share the strange excitement, and court the joys which accompany life on the sea.
Chapter XXXVIII. THE SEA, AND SAILORS
When we embark on the ocean, we are astonished at its immensity, bounded only by the horizon, with not a speck of land, a solitary rock, or landmark of any description, to guide the adventurers cast adrift on its broad surface, with "water, water, every where;" and when we see its face agitated by storms, and listen to the thunder of its billows, and reflect on its uncertain and mysterious character, and on the dangers with which it has been associated in every age, we wonder at the courage and enterprise of those early navigators, strangers to science, who dared embark on the waste of waters in vessels of the frailest construction, to explore the expanse of ocean and make discovery of,
"New lands,
Rivers and mountains on the spotted globe."
Even familiarity with the sea, which has become the great highway of nations, does not diminish its sublimity, its wild beauties, its grandeur, and the terrible power of its wrath.
The immensity of the sea, notwithstanding its surface has been traversed and measured by thousands of voyagers for centuries, fills the contemplative mind with awe, as a wonderful creation of Almighty Power. One can hardly realize its vast extent from figures and calculations, without sailing over its surface and witnessing its immensity, as day after day passes away, the cry being still "onward, onward!" and the view bounded on every side by the distant horizon.