small stores came on board for the cabin, and Dan McCoy persuaded me to
try the flavour of a bottle of cherry-bounce. I did not drink much, but
the little I swallowed made me completely drunk. This was the first time I
ever was in that miserable and disgraceful plight; would to God I could
also say it was the last! The last it was, however, for several years;
that is some comfort. I thank my Divine Master that I have lived to see
the hour when intoxicating liquors have ceased to have any command over
me, and when, indeed, they never pass my lips. Capt. Johnston did not flog
me for this act of folly, merely pulling my ears a little, and sharply
reprimanding me; both he and Mr. Irish seeming to understand that my
condition had proceeded from the weakness of my head. Dan was the
principal sufferer, as, to say the truth, he ought to have been. He was
rope's-ended for his pains.

Next day the stevedores took the ship in to the stream, and the crew came
on board. The assembling of the crew of a merchantman, in that day, was a
melancholy sight. The men came off, bearing about them the signs of the
excesses of which they had been guilty while on shore; some listless and
stupid, others still labouring under the effects of liquor, and some in
that fearful condition which seamen themselves term having the "horrors."
Our crew was neither better nor worse than that of other ships. It was
also a sample of the mixed character of the crews of American vessels
during the height of her neutral trade. The captain, chief-mate, cook, and
four of those forward, were American born; while the second-mate was a
Portuguese. The boys were, one Scotch, and one a Canadian; and there were
a Spaniard, a Prussian, a Dane, and an Englishman, in the forecastle.
There was also an Englishman who worked his passage, having been the
cooper of a whaler that was wrecked. As Dan McCoy was sent forward, too,
this put ten in the forecastle, besides the cook, and left five aft,
including the master of another wrecked English vessel, whom we took out