I uttered no complaints, but bore this continual exposure, night and day, and other inconveniences, with a philosophical spirit, conceiving them to be a part of the compact. If the passage had only been of moderate length, I should, in all likelihood, have reached Boston in good health; but nineteen days had passed away when we sailed through the Vineyard Sound, and anchored in the harbor of Hyannis, on the third of July, 1810.
Some days before we reached Hyannis, I found myself gradually losing strength. I was visited with occasional fits of shivering, succeeded by fever heats. But on the morning of the glorious Fourth, I felt my whole system renovated at the idea of celebrating "Independence Day" on shore. The captain and mate of the Lydia both belonged to Barnstable, where their families resided. They both left the schooner for their homes as soon as the anchor reached the bottom, boldly predicting head winds or calms for at least thirty-six hours, at the end of which time they calculated to rejoin the schooner.
On the morning of the fourth, the crew, to a man, followed the example of our trustworthy officers, and determined to have a jovial time on shore. We left the good schooner Lydia soberly riding at anchor, to take care of herself. There were several other vessels in the harbor, all of which were deserted in the same manner. Not a living animal was to be found in the whole fleet. After passing weeks at sea, the temptation to tread the firm earth, and participate in a Fourth of July frolic, was too strong to be resisted.
Hyannis was then quite a humble village with a profusion of salt works. Farm houses were thinly scattered around, and comfort seemed inscribed on every dwelling. There seemed to be an abundance of people moving about on that day; where they came from was a problem I could not solve. Every one seemed pleased and happy, and, with commendable patriotism, resolved to enjoy Independence Day. The young men were neatly apparelled, and bent on having a joyous time; and the girls Cape Cod girls, ever renowned for beauty and worth gayly decked out with smiles, and dimples, and ribbons, ready for a Fourth of July frolic, dazzled the eyes of the beholders, and threw a magic charm over the scene.
And a frolic they had; fiddling, dancing, fun, and patriotism was the order of the day. In the evening, however, the entertainments were varied by the delivery of a sermon and other religious exercises in the school-house by a young Baptist clergyman, who subsequently became well known for his praiseworthy and successful efforts to reduce the rates on postage in the United States. This good man accomplished the great work of his life and died. A simple monument is erected to his memory at Mount Auburn, with no more than these words of inscription:
"BARNABAS BATES,
FATHER OF CHEAP POSTAGE."
Hardly a person visits that consecrated ground who has not reaped enjoyment from the labors of that man's life. And as the simple epitaph meets the eye, and is read in an audible tone, the heart-felt invocation, "Blessings on his memory!" is his oft-repeated elegy.
It was about nine o'clock in the evening when the crew returned to the schooner. After we gained the deck I was seized with an unpleasant sensation. A sudden chill seemed to congeal the blood in my veins; my teeth chattered, and my frame shook with alarming violence. After the lapse of about thirty minutes the chills gave place to an attack of fever, which, in an hour or two, also disappeared, leaving me in a weak and wretched condition. This proved to be a case of intermittent fever, or FEVER AND AGUE, a distressing malady, but little known in New England in modern times, although by no means a stranger to the early settlers. It was fastened upon me with a rough and tenacious grasp, by the damp, foggy, chilly atmosphere in which I had constantly lived for the last fortnight.
Next morning, in good season, the captain and mate were on board. The wind was fair, and we got under weigh doubled Cape Cod, and arrived alongside the T Wharf in Boston, after a tedious and uncomfortable passage of twenty-two days from Savannah.
I left my home a healthy-looking boy, with buoyant spirits, a bright eye, and features beaming with hope. A year had passed, and I stood on the wharf in Boston, a slender stripling, with a pale and sallow complexion, a frame attenuated by disease, and a spirit oppressed by disappointment. The same day I deposited my chest in a packet bound to Portsmouth, tied up a few trifling articles in a handkerchief, shook hands with the worthy Captain Burgess, his mate and kind-hearted crew, and with fifteen silver dollars in my pocket, wended my way to the stage tavern in Ann Street, and made arrangements for a speedy journey to my home in Rockingham County, New Hampshire.