prove their wisdom and importance, and the disasters which ensued in
consequence of the neglect of them.




CHAPTER V.

Sailing of the Tonquin.--A Rigid Commander and a Reckless
Crew.--Landsmen on Shipboard.--Fresh-Water Sailors at Sea.--
Lubber Nests.--Ship Fare.--A Labrador Veteran--Literary
Clerks.-Curious Travellers.--Robinson Crusoe's Island.--
Quarter-Deck Quarrels.--Falkland Islands.--A Wild-Goose
Chase.--Port Egmont.-Epitaph Hunting.--Old Mortality--
Penguin Shooting.--Sportsmen Left in the Lurch.--A Hard
Pull.--Further Altercations.--Arrival at Owyhee.

ON the eighth of September, 1810, the Tonquin put to sea, where she was
soon joined by the frigate Constitution. The wind was fresh and fair
from the southwest, and the ship was soon out of sight of land and free
from the apprehended danger of interruption. The frigate, therefore,
gave her "God speed," and left her to her course.

The harmony so earnestly enjoined by Mr. Astor on this heterogeneous
crew, and which had been so confidently promised in the buoyant moments
of preparation, was doomed to meet with a check at the very outset.

Captain Thorn was an honest, straighforward, but somewhat dry and
dictatorial commander, who, having been nurtured in the system and
discipline of a ship of war, and in a sacred opinion of the supremacy of