And that deep anthem, which the choiring waves
Of ocean roll from her melodious caves.
Tuesday, March 24. What ups and downs there are on board a man-of-war! The young Englishman who left the elegancies of the Astor-House, and shipped as a common sailor on board our frigate, continued to win upon the friendship of the crew. He was hail fellow well met with the whole. He was always at his post, and prompt and cheerful in duty. No weather ever sent him below, when it was his watch on deck. He struck out so strongly, that he soon gained a position aloft, and had his eye on being captain of the main-top.
But on reaching Valparaiso his nom de guerre took flight. He was recognised as the son of a wealthy broker in Manchester, England; and the important intelligence had just reached here that his uncle, recently deceased, had left him twenty thousand pounds. The correctness of this intelligence was ascertained from sources which left no doubt; and still he hesitated about applying for his discharge, and declared he had never been so happy as since he turned sailor. He brought on board a letter of credit on a large banking-house in New York, but had never availed himself of it. He at last yielded to the importunities of his friends at Valparaiso, and applied for his discharge, which Captain Du Pont, with the sanction of our commodore, ordered to be made out. He shook hands with his shipmates, wished them stiff breezes and snug harbors, and in his tarpaulin and roundabout, left his station on the main-yard for a London coach.
Wednesday, March 25. We have among our crew a youth who is touched with insanity. The hallucination takes every variety of shape, and every degree of force. A few days since he fancied that he had but one friend on board, and wanted a lantern at noon, with which to look him up. To-day his conviction has been that he shall not see the sun rise again? As the glorious orb went down, he stationed himself on the steps of the accommodation-ladder to take his farewell look. There was as much poetry in his fine wild features as in the tragical idea that had brought him there. He poured his mournful adieu to the sun in the lines of Manfred, which seemed more his own than the guilty misanthrope’s who uttered them:
“Thou material God!
And representative of the Unknown—
Who chose thee for his shadow. Thou chief star!
Sire of the seasons! monarch of the climes,
And those who dwell in them! for near or far,