University of Virginia Library

19. CHAPTER XIX.

About three months after the death of Chapman, I was
well enough to quit the hospital. I could walk, with the aid
of crutches, but had no hope of ever being a sound man
again. Of course, I had an anxious desire to get home;
for all my resolutions, misanthropical feelings, and resentments,
had vanished in the moral change I had undergone.
My health, as a whole, was now good. Temperance, abstinence,
and a happy frame of mind, had proved excellent
doctors; and, although I had not, and never shall, altogether,
recover from the effects of my fall, I had quite done with
the “horrors.” The last fit of them I suffered was in the
deep conviction I felt concerning my sinful state. I knew
nothing of Temperance Societies — had never heard that
such things existed, or, if I had, forgot it as soon as heard;
and yet, unknown to myself, had joined the most effective

and most permanent of all these bodies. Since my fall, I
have not tasted spirituous liquors, except as medicine, and
in very small quantities, nor do I now feel the least desire
to drink. By the grace of God, the great curse of my life
has been removed, and I have lived a perfectly sober man
for the last five years. I look upon liquor as one of the
great agents of the devil in destroying souls, and turn from
it, almost as sensitively as I could wish to turn from sin.

I wrote to the merchant who held my wages, on the subject
of quitting the hospital, but got no answer. I then
resolved to go to Batavia myself, and took my discharge
from the hospital, accordingly. I can truly say, I left that
place, into which I had entered a miserable, heart-broken
cripple, a happy man. Still, I had nothing; not even the
means of seeking a livelihood. But I was lightened of the
heaviest of all my burthens, and felt I could go through the
world rejoicing, though, literally, moving on crutches.

The hospital is seven miles from the town, and I went
this distance in a canal-boat, Dutch fashion. Many of these
canals exist in Java, and they have had the effect to make
the island much more healthy, by draining the marshes.
They told me, the canal I was on ran fifty miles into the
interior. The work was done by the natives, but under the
direction of their masters, the Dutch.

On reaching the town, I hobbled up to the merchant,
who gave me a very indifferent reception. He said I had
cost too much already, but that I must return to the hospital,
until an opportunity offered for sending me to Holland.
This I declined doing. Return to the hospital I would not,
as I knew it could do no good, and my wish was to get back
to America. I then went to the American consul, who
treated me kindly. I was told, however, he could do nothing
for me, as I had come out in a Dutch ship, unless I relinquished
all claims to my wages, and all claims on the Dutch
laws. My wages were a trifle, and I had no difficulty in
relinquishing them, and as for claims, I wished to present
none on the laws of Holland.

The consul then saw the Dutch merchant, and the matter
was arranged between them. The Plato, the very ship
that left Helvoetsluys in company with us, was then at Batavia,
taking in cargo for Bremenhaven. She had a new captain,

and he consented to receive me as a consul's man.
This matter was all settled the day I reached the town, and
I was to go on board the ship in the morning.

I said nothing to the consul about money, but left his
office with the expectation of getting some from the Dutch
merchant. I had tasted no food that day, and, on reaching
the merchant's, I found him on the point of going into the
country; no one sleeping in the town at that season, who
could help it. He took no notice of me, and I got no assistance;
perhaps I was legally entitled to none. I now sat
down on some boxes, and thought I would remain at that
spot until morning. Sleeping in the open air, on an empty
stomach, in that town, and at that season, would probably
have proved my death, had I been so fortunate as to escape
being murdered by the Malays for the clothes I had on.
Providence took care of me. One of the clerks, a Portuguese,
took pity on me, and led me to a house occupied by
a negro, who had been converted to Christianity. We met
with a good deal of difficulty in finding admission. The
black said the English and Americans were so wicked he
was afraid of them; but, finding by my discourse that I
was not one of the Christian heathen, he altered his tone,
and nothing was then too good for me. I was fed, and he
sent for my chest, receiving with it a bed and three blankets,
as a present from the charitable clerk. Thus were my prospects
for that night suddenly changed for the better! I could
only thank God, in my inmost heart, for all his mercies.

The old black, who was a man of some means, was also
about to quit the town; but, before he went, he inquired if
I had a bible. I told him yes; still, he would not rest until
he had pressed upon me a large bible, in English, which
language he spoke very well. This book had prayers for
seamen bound up with it. It was, in fact, a sort of English
prayer-book, as well as bible. This I accepted, and
have now with me. As soon as the old man went away,
leaving his son behind him for the moment, I began to read
in my Pilgrim's Progress. The young man expressed a
desire to examine the book, understanding English perfectly.
After reading in it for a short time, he earnestly begged the
book, telling me he had two sisters, who would be infinitely
pleased to possess it. I could not refuse him, and he promised

to send another book in its place, which I should find
equally good. He thus left me, taking the Pilgrim's Progress
with him. Half an hour later a servant brought me
the promised book, which proved to be Doddridge's Rise and
Progress. On looking through the pages, I found a Mexican
dollar wafered between two of the leaves. All this I
regarded as providential, and as a proof that the Lord would
not desert me. My gratitude, I hope, was in proportion.
This whole household appeared to be religious, for I passed
half the night in conversing with the Malay servants, on
the subject of Christianity; concerning which they had
already received many just ideas. I knew that my teaching
was like the blind instructing the blind; but it had the
merit of coming from God, though in a degree suited to my
humble claims on his grace.

In the morning, these Malays gave me breakfast, and
then carried my chest and other articles to the Plato's boat.
I was happy enough to find myself, once more, under the
stars and stripes, where I was well received, and humanely
treated. The ship sailed for Bremen about twenty days
after I got on board her.

Of course, I could do but little on the passage. Whenever
I moved along the deck, it was by crawling, though I could
work with the needle and palm. A fortnight out, the carpenter,
a New York man, died. I tried to read and pray
with him, but cannot say that he showed any consciousness
of his true situation. We touched at St. Helena for water,
and, Napoleon being then dead, had no difficulty in getting
ashore. After watering we sailed again, and reached our
port in due time.

I was now in Europe, a part of the world that I had little
hopes of seeing ten months before. Still it was my desire
to get to America, and I was permitted to remain in the ship.
I was treated in the kindest manner by captain Bunting, and
Mr. Bowden, the mate, who gave me everything I needed.
At the end of a few weeks we sailed again, for New York,
where we arrived in the month of August, 1840.

I left the Plato at the quarantine ground, going to the
Sailor's Retreat. Here the physician told me I never could
recover the use of my limb as I had possessed it before, but
that the leg would gradually grow stronger, and that I might

get along without crutches in the end. All this has turned
out to be true. The pain had long before left me, weakness
being now the great difficulty. The hip-joint is injured, and
this in a way that still compels me to rely greatly on a stick
in walking.

At the Sailor's Retreat, I again met Mr. Miller. I now,
for the first time, received regular spiritual advice, and it
proved to be of great benefit to me. After remaining a
month at the Retreat, I determined to make an application
for admission to the Sailor's Snug Harbour, a richly endowed
asylum for seamen, on the same island. In order to be
admitted, it was necessary to have sailed under the flag five
years, and to get a character. I had sailed, with two short
exceptions, thirty-four years under the flag, and I do believe
in all that time, the nineteen months of imprisonment excluded,
I had not been two years unattached to a ship. I
think I must have passed at least a quarter of a century out
of sight of land.[1]

I now went up to New York, and hunted up captain Pell,
with whom I had sailed in the Sully and in the Normandy.
This gentleman gave me a certificate, and, as I left him,
handed me a dollar. This was every cent I had on earth.
Next, I found captain Witheroudt, of the Silvie de Grasse,
who treated me in precisely the same way. I told him I
had one dollar already, but he insisted it should be two.
With these two dollars in my pocket, I was passing up Wall
street, when, in looking about me, I saw the pension office.
The reader will remember that I left Washington with the
intention of finding Lemuel Bryant, in order to obtain his

certificate, that I might get a pension for the injury received
on board the Scourge. With this project, I had connected
a plan of returning to Boston, and of getting some employment
in the Navy Yard. My pension-ticket had, in consequence,
been made payable at Boston. My arrival at New
York, and the shadding expedition, had upset all this plan;
and before I went to Savannah, I had carried my pension-ticket
to the agent in this Wall street office, and requested
him to get another, made payable in New York. This was
the last I had seen of my ticket, and almost the last I had
thought of my pension. But, I now crossed the street, went
into the office, and was recognised immediately. Everything
was in rule, and I came out of the office with fifty-six
dollars in my pockets! I had no thought of this pension,
at all, in coming up to town. It was so much money showered
down upon me, unexpectedly.

For a man of my habits, who kept clear of drink, I was
now rich. Instead of remaining in town, however, I went
immediately down to the Harbour, and presented myself to
its respectable superintendant, the venerable Captain Whetten.[2]
I was received into the institution without any difficulty,
and have belonged to it ever since. My entrance at
Sailors' Snug Harbour took place Sept. 17, 1840; just one
month after I landed at Sailors' Retreat. The last of these
places is a seamen's hospital, where men are taken in only
to be cured; while the first is an asylum for worn-out mariners,
for life. The last is supported by a bequest made,
many years ago, by an old ship-master, whose remains lie
in front of the building.

Knowing myself now to be berthed for the rest of my
days, should I be so inclined, and should I remain worthy
to receive the benefits of so excellent an institution, I began
to look about me, like a man who had settled down in the
world. One of my first cares, was to acquit myself of the
duty of publicly joining some church of Christ, and thus
acknowledge my dependence on his redemption and mercy.
Mr. Miller, he whose sermons had made so deep an impression
on my mind, was living within a mile and a half of the
Harbour, and to him I turned in my need. I was an Episcopalian

by infant baptism, and I am still as much attached
to that form of worship, as to any other; but sects have little
weight with me, the heart being the main-stay, under God's
grace. Two of us, then, joined Mr. Miller's church; and I
have ever since continued one of his communicants. I have
not altogether deserted the communion in which I was baptized;
occasionally communing in the church of Mr. Moore.
To me, there is no difference; though I suppose more learned
Christians may find materials for a quarrel, in the distinctions
which exist between these two churches. I hope never
to quarrel with either.

To my surprise, sometime after I was received into the
Harbour, I ascertained that my sister had removed to New
York, and was then living in the place. I felt it, now, to
be a duty to hunt her up, and see her. This I did; and we
met, again, after a separation of five-and-twenty years. She
could tell me very little of my family; but I now learned, for
the first time, that my father had been killed in battle.
Who, or what he was, I have not been able to ascertain,
beyond the facts already stated in the opening of the memoir.

I had ever retained a kind recollection of the treatment
of Captain Johnston, and accident threw into my way some
information concerning him. The superintendant had put
me in charge of the library of the institution; and, one day,
I overheard some visiters talking of Wiscasset. Upon this,
I ventured to inquire after my old master, and was glad to
learn that he was not only living, but in good health and
circumstances. To my surprise I was told that a nephew
of his was actually living within a mile of me. In September,
1842, I went to Wiscasset, to visit Captain Johnston,
and found myself received like the repentant prodigal. The
old gentleman, and his sisters, seemed glad to see me; and,
I found that the former had left the seas, though he still
remained a ship-owner; having a stout vessel of five hundred
tons, which is, at this moment, named after our old
craft, the Sterling.

I remained at Wiscasset several weeks. During this
time, Captain Johnston and myself talked over old times, as
a matter of course, and I told him I thought one of our
old shipmates was still living. On his asking whom, I inquired
if he remembered the youngster, of the name of

Cooper, who had been in the Sterling. He answered, perfectly
well, and that he supposed him to be the Captain
Cooper who was then in the navy. I had thought so, too,
for a long time; but happened to be on board the Hudson,
at New York, when a Captain Cooper visited her. Hearing
his name, I went on deck expressly to see him, and was
soon satisfied it was not my old ship-mate. There are two
Captains Cooper in the navy,—father and son,—but neither
had been in the Sterling. Now, the author of many naval
tales, and of the Naval History, was from Cooperstown,
New York; and I had taken it into my head this was the
very person who had been with us in the Sterling. Captain
Johnston thought not; but I determined to ascertain the
fact, immediately on my return to New York.

Quitting Wiscasset, I came back to the Harbour, in the
month of November, 1842. I ought to say, that the men
at this institution, who maintain good characters, can always
get leave to go where they please, returning whenever they
please. There is no more restraint than is necessary to
comfort and good order; the object being to make old tars
comfortable. Soon after my return to the Harbour, I wrote
a letter to Mr. Fenimore Cooper, and sent it to his residence,
at Cooperstown, making the inquiries necessary to know if
he were the person of the same family who had been in the
Sterling. I got an answer, beginning in these words—“I
am your old ship-mate, Ned.” Mr. Cooper informed me
when he would be in town, and where he lodged.

In the spring, I got a message from Mr. Blancard, the
keeper of the Globe Hotel, and the keeper, also, of Brighton,
near the Harbour, to say that Mr. Cooper was in town, and
wished to see me. Next day, I went up, accordingly; but
did not find him in. After paying one or two visits, I was
hobbling up Broadway, to go to the Globe again, when my
old commander at Pensacola, Commodore Bolton, passed
down street, arm-in-arm with a stranger. I saluted the commodore,
who nodded his head to me, and this induced the
stranger to look round. Presently I heard “Ned!” in a
voice that I knew immediately, though I had not heard it in
thirty-seven years. It was my old ship-mate—the gentleman
who has written out this account of my career, from my
verbal narrative of the facts.

Mr. Cooper asked me to go up to his place, in the country,
and pass a few weeks there. I cheerfully consented,
and we reached Cooperstown early in June. Here I found
a neat village, a beautiful lake, nine miles long, and, altogether,
a beautiful country. I had never been as far from
the sea before, the time when I served on Lake Ontario
excepted. Cooperstown lies in a valley, but Mr. Cooper
tells me it is at an elevation of twelve hundred feet above
tide-water. To me, the clouds appeared so low, I thought
I could almost shake hands with them; and, altogether, the
air and country were different from any I had ever seen, or
breathed, before.

My old shipmate took me often on the Lake, which I will
say is a slippery place to navigate. I thought I had seen
all sorts of winds before I saw the Otsego, but, on this lake
it sometimes blew two or three different ways at the same
time. While knocking about this piece of water, in a good
stout boat, I related to my old shipmate many of the incidents
of my wandering life, until, one day, he suggested it
might prove interesting to publish them. I was willing,
could the work be made useful to my brother sailors, and
those who might be thrown into the way of temptations like
those which came so near wrecking all my hopes, both for
this world, and that which is to come. We accordingly
went to work between us, and the result is now laid before
the world. I wish it understood, that this is literally my
own story, logged by my old shipmate.

It is now time to clew up. When a man has told all he
has to say, the sooner he is silent the better. Every word
that has been related, I believe to be true; when I am
wrong, it proceeds from ignorance, or want of memory. I
may possibly have made some trifling mistakes about dates,
and periods, but I think they would turn out to be few, on
inquiry. In many instances I have given my impressions,
which, like those of other men, may be right, or may be
wrong. As for the main facts, however, I know them to
be true, nor do I think myself much out of the way, in any
of the details.

This is the happiest period of my life, and has been so
since I left the hospital at Batavia. I do not know that I
have ever passed a happier summer than the present has

been. I should be perfectly satisfied with everything, did
not my time hang so idle on my hands at the Harbour. I
want something to occupy my leisure moments, and do not
despair of yet being able to find a mode of life more suitable
to the activity of my early days. I have friends enough—
more than I deserve — and, yet, a man needs occupation,
who has the strength and disposition to be employed. That
which is to happen is in the hands of Providence, and I
humbly trust I shall be cared for, to the end, as I have been
cared for, through so many scenes of danger and trial.

My great wish is that this picture of a sailor's risks and
hardships, may have some effect in causing this large and useful
class of men to think on the subject of their habits. I entertain
no doubt that the money I have disposed of far worse
than if I had thrown it into the sea, which went to reduce
me to that mental hell, the `horrors,' and which, on one
occasion, at least, drove me to the verge of suicide, would
have formed a sum, had it been properly laid by, on which
I might now have been enjoying an old age of comfort and
respectability. It is seldom that a seaman cannot lay by a
hundred dollars in a twelvemonth—oftentimes I have earned
double that amount, beyond my useful outlays—and a hundred
dollars a year, at the end of thirty years, would give
such a man an independence for the rest of his days. This
is far from all, however; the possession of means would
awaken the desire of advancement in the calling, and thousands,
who now remain before the mast, would long since
have been officers, could they have commanded the self-respect
that property is apt to create.

On the subject of liquor, I can say nothing that has not
often been said by others, in language far better than I can
use. I do not think I was as bad, in this respect, as perhaps
a majority of my associates; yet, this narrative will
show how often the habit of drinking to excess impeded my
advance. It was fast converting me into a being inferior to
a man, and, but for God's mercy, might have rendered me
the perpetrator of crimes that it would shock me to think
of, in my sober and sane moments.

The past, I have related as faithfully as I have been able
so to do. The future is with God; to whom belongeth power,
and glory, for ever and ever!

THE END.