“When we’d been out four days we was chased by a privateer, and once they got in a quarter of a mile on us, but we had the most canvass, and we histed the sky scrapers, moon rakers, and star gazers, and water sail, and a good wind. But they fired on us all the time they was near enough. They chased us two days, and then we fell in with a French frigate, and they hailed us, and wanted to know if we’d seen a privateer along the coast, and so the captain told all about it and they gin three cheers and bore away arter her.
“In a few hours we heard a dreadful cannonadin’, and a great cloud of smoke riz out of the sea, and we concluded they’d overhauled her, and we left her in good hands. We sailed on for Bristol, and arter we’d been there five days, the news come that a French frigate had captured a Spanish privateer, but didn’t take any of her crew, for no sooner than they found themselves taken than they blew up their ship.
“We stayed in Bristol some time, and started at last for New York. On our passage out, we come across a wreck, and we sailed within forty rods on her, and sent out a small boat, and there warn’t a livin’ soul aboard to tell the story, and there she lay bottom side up, and as handsome a copper bottom as ever you see; but we couldn’t do any thing with her, and so we left her and sailed on.
“About a week arter, we was a sailin’ along afore a pleasant breeze, and the moon shinin’ on the waters, and they looked like melted silver, the first thing we knew up come a seventy-four gun ship right alongside, her guns run out, and men standin’ with burnin’ torches jist ready to fire, and we felt streaked enough, for we expected to be blown up every minute, and there we stood a tremblin’ and didn’t dare to say one word; and she passed right by and never fired a pistol, and in one minute she was out of sight—she come and she went and that’s all you can say. Now that’s what the sailors call ‘the phantom ship.’ You see there’s no ship about it, only some curious appearances on the sea, that always scares sailors, and makes them think they are a goin’ to be captured. Well, we had a fine v’yge home, and made the New York light the first of November, arter a cruise of nearly twelve months. I didn’t like Captain Williams, and I quit him, and he paid me off one hundred and fifteen dollars, and I had now two hundred and fifty dollars, and I kept it safe. And a part of the time I went round New York with a saw-buck on my shoulder, and part of the time I was a gentleman at large in the big city—and so I spent that winter.
CHAPTER III.
Peter sails for Gibralter with Captain Bainbridge—his character—horrible storm—Henry falls from aloft and is killed—a funeral at sea—English lady prays—Gibralter and the landing of soldiers—a frigate and four merchantmen—Napoleon—Wellington and Lord Nelson—a slave ship—her cargo—five hundred slaves—a wake of blood fifteen hundred miles—sharks eat ’em—Amsterdam—winter there—Captain B. winters in Bristol—Dutchmen—visit to an old battle field—stories about Napoleon—Peter falls overboard and is drowned, almost—make New York the fourth of July—Peter lends five hundred dollars and loses it—sails to the West Indies with Captain Thompson—returns to New York and winters with Lady Rylander—sails with Captain Williams for Gibralter—fleet thirty-seven sail—cruise up the Mediterranean—Mt. Etna—sails to Liverpool—Lord Wellington and his troops—war between Great Britain and the United States—sails for New York and goes to sea no more—his own confessions of his character—dreadful wicked—sings a sailor song and winds up his yarn.
Peter. “The next spring in the fore part of May, I saw Captain Bainbridge on the Battery, and he hails me and says, ‘don’t you want a berth for a summer v’ge? I says, ‘yis Sir,’ and then we bargains about wages; and I was to have twenty-five dollars a month, and he told me to go to the Custom-house in the mornin’; and so I did, and several others he’d seen, and we all hired out, and he gin me a steward’s perquisites and twenty-five dollars a month. So we goes aboard his fine new ship jist built in New Bedford, and ’twas one of the best I ever see; and she was to sail in a week on Monday, and all on us agreed to be aboard, by ten o’clock; and by ten o’clock all on us was there to a man, and we received our orders, and they was mazin’ strict, for he was the strictest captain I ever sailed under, but a fine feller with all—sound, good hearted and a hail feller well met.
“We all hands stood on deck, and a sight of passengers, and we’d bid our wives and sweethearts all farewell, and at twelve o’clock, noon, we weighed anchor for Gibralter. The pilot took us out to sea—she was a little steamboat, for only two or three years afore this, Fulton got his steamboat invented on the Hudson. Well she left us ’bout three o’clock and bid us all ‘good bye;’ and a nice evenin’ breeze sprung up, and we spread all sail and cut the waves like any thing. And so ’bout midnight I goes on deck, and looked and looked ashore, but the shore of my country was hid, for we’d moved on so brisk, it had disappeared. We had a beautiful time till we’d sailed eight days; and one day afterwards the breeze grew stronger, and the moon shone and played over the waters, till it looked like silver; and such an evenin’ I hardly ever see be at sea.
“Well next day, at one o’clock, a dark awful cloud riz up out of the northeast, and it got so the lightnin’ played along the edge of the cloud pretty briskly afore it covered the sun. The thunder rattled like great chariots over a great stone pavement. Captain orders all hands to their posts, and begun to reef and make all fast, and cover the hatches, and prepare for a storm. Finally the cloud covered the whole face of the heavens, and the captain says ‘attention all hands! Now fellow sailors be brave, we’ve got a new ship and her riggin’ will slack some, and we don’t know how she’ll work; but stick to your posts, and by the help of God, we’ll weather the storm.’