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1Author:  Ingraham J. H. (Joseph Holt) 1809-1860Add
 Title:  The spectre steamer, and other tales  
 Published:  1997 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: It was in the spring of 1839, that I left New Orleans, in the splendid steamer Saint Louis, for Saint Louis. The morning was clear and brilliant, and the atmosphere of that agreeable elasticity which inspires the dullest with good spirits. We backed out slowly and majestically from our birth at the pier, and, gaining the mid-river, began to ascend the stream with rapid but stately motion. I stood upon the `hurricane-deck,' with fifty other passengers, admiring the view of the city as we ran swifty past it. Street after street terminating in a straight line in the cypress swamp, appeared and disappeared, and turret, spire, and terrace receded rapidly in the distance. The half league of shipping lying `three deep' against the pier, and waiting for their freight of cotton, presented a grand and imposing spectacle. They were Americans and of all European nations, principally English and French; and as every ship wore her flag half-mast in honor of a captain of one of them who had died the day previous, their appearance was at once solemn (from association) and brilliant. Who that has ever visited New Or leans in the winter season, can forget the fine effect of this wide-stretching crescent of shipping that enfolds the city at either extremity like wings? `Sir,—Ten years ago you saved my life. I am now in a situation to show you substantial gratitude. I learn from your friend, my host, that you are a seaman and are doing well. Yet you may do better. I enclose you five bank of England notes for five hundred pounds each. Accept them as your right. They are nothing in my estimation put side by side with the life you saved. I wish you and your noble mother all happiness and health. Greeting: `I do believe I am innocent of this thing, as I am an honorable gentleman. How it came into my possession, I am as ignorant as the child unborn.
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