"Precisely at the appointed hour, ten o'clock, the steamboat with the passengers and their baggage left the Whitehall dock for our gallant ship, which was lying to above the city, heading up the North River, careening to the brisk northwest gale, and waiting with apparent impatience for us, like a spirited horse curvetting under the rein of his master, and waiting but his signal to bound away. A few moments brought us to her side, and a few more saw the steamboat leave us, and the sad farewells to relatives and friends, who had thus far accompanied us, were mutually exchanged by the waving of hands and of handkerchiefs. The 'Ready about,' and soon after the 'Mainsail haul' of the pilot were answered by the cheering 'Ho, heave, ho' of the sailors, and, with the fairest wind that ever blew, we fast left the spires and shores of the great city behind us. In two hours we discharged our pilot to the south of Sandy Hook, with his pocket full of farewell letters to our friends, and then stood on our course for England.
"Four days brought us to the Banks of Newfoundland, one third of our passage. Many of our passengers were sanguine in their anticipations of our making the shortest passage ever known, and, had our subsequent progress been as great as at first, we should doubtless have accomplished the voyage in thirteen days, but calms and head winds for three days on the Banks have frustrated our expectations.
"There is little that is interesting in the incidents of a voyage. The indescribable listlessness of seasickness, the varied state of feeling which changes with the wind and weather, have often been described. These I experienced in all their force. From the time we left the Banks of Newfoundland we had a continued succession of head winds, and when within one fair day's sail of land, we were kept off by severe gales directly ahead for five successive days and nights, during which time the uneasy motion of the ship deprived us all of sleep, except in broken intervals of an half-hour at a time. We neither saw nor spoke any vessel until the evening of the ——, when we descried through the darkness a large vessel on an opposite course from ourselves; we first saw her cabin lights. It was blowing a gale of wind before which we were going on our own course at the rate of eleven miles an hour. It was, of course, impossible to speak her, but, to let her know that she had company on the wide ocean, we threw up a rocket which for splendor of effect surpassed any that I had ever seen on shore. It was thrown from behind the mizzenmast, over which it shot arching its way over the main and foremasts, illuminating every sail and rope, and then diving into the water, piercing the wave, it again shot upwards and vanished in a loud report. To our companion ship the effect must have been very fine.
"The sea is often complained of for its monotony, and yet there is great variety in the appearance of the sea."
Here it ends, but we learn a little more of the voyage and the landing in
England from a letter to a cousin in America, written in Liverpool, on
December 5, 1829:—
"I arrived safely in England yesterday after a long, but, on the whole, pleasant, passage of twenty-six days. I write you from the inn (the King's Arms Hotel) at which I put up eighteen years ago. This inn is the one at which Professor Silliman stayed when he travelled in England, and which he mentions in his travels. The old Frenchman whom he mentions I well remember when I was here before. I enquired for him and am told he is still living, but I have not seen him.
"There is a large black man, a waiter in the house, who is quite a polished man in his manners, and an elderly white man, with white hair, who looks so respectable and dignified that one feels a little awkward at first in ordering him to do this or that service; and the chambermaids look so venerable and matronly that to ask them for a pitcher of water seems almost rude to them. But I am in a land where domestic servants are the best in the world. No servant aspires to a higher station, but feels a pride in making himself the first in that station. I notice this, for our own country presents a melancholy contrast in this particular."
Here follows a description of the voyage, and he continues:—
"Yesterday we anchored off the Floating Light, sixteen miles from the city, unable to reach the dock on account of the wind, but the post-office steamboat (or steamer, as they call them here) came to us from Liverpool to take the letter-bags, and I with other passengers got on board, and at twelve o'clock I once more placed my foot on English ground.
"The weather is true English weather, thick, smoky, and damp. I can see nothing of the general appearance of the city. The splendid docks, which were building when I was here before, are now completed and extend along the river. They are really splendid; everything about them is solid and substantial, of stone and iron, and on so large a scale.