In the summer of 1874 I was in Liverpool, whither I had gone on
business for the mercantile house of Bronson & Jarrett, New York. I
am William Jarrett; my partner was Zenas Bronson. The firm failed
last year, and unable to endure the fall from affluence to poverty he
died.

Having finished my business, and feeling the lassitude and exhaustion
incident to its dispatch, I felt that a protracted sea voyage would
be both agreeable and beneficial, so instead of embarking for my
return on one of the many fine passenger steamers I booked for New
York on the sailing vessel Morrow, upon which I had shipped a large
and valuable invoice of the goods I had bought. The Morrow was an
English ship with, of course, but little accommodation for
passengers, of whom there were only myself, a young woman and her
servant, who was a middle-aged negress. I thought it singular that a
traveling English girl should be so attended, but she afterward
explained to me that the woman had been left with her family by a man
and his wife from South Carolina, both of whom had died on the same
day at the house of the young lady's father in Devonshire--a
circumstance in itself sufficiently uncommon to remain rather
distinctly in my memory, even had it not afterward transpired in
conversation with the young lady that the name of the man was William
Jarrett, the same as my own. I knew that a branch of my family had
settled in South Carolina, but of them and their history I was
ignorant.

The Morrow sailed from the mouth of the Mersey on the 15th of June
and for several weeks we had fair breezes and unclouded skies. The