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Homeward Bound - or, the Chase by James Fenimore Cooper
page 11 of 613 (01%)
as himself."

Still, John Effingham was a man of cultivated mind, of extensive
intercourse with the world, and of manners that varied with the occasion;
or perhaps it were better to say, with his humours. In all these
particulars but the latter the cousins were alike; Edward Effingham's
deportment being as equal as his temper, though also distinguished for a
knowledge of society.

These gentlemen had embarked at London, on their fiftieth birthday, in the
packet of the 1st of October, bound to New York; the lands and family
residence of the proprietor lying in the state of that name, of which all
of the parties were natives. It is not usual for the cabin passengers of
the London packets to embark in the docks; but Mr. Effingham,--as we shall
call the father in general, to distinguish him from the bachelor,
John,--as an old and experienced traveller, had determined to make his
daughter familiar with the peculiar odours of the vessel in smooth water,
as a protection against sea-sickness; a malady, however, from which she
proved to be singularly exempt in the end. They had, accordingly, been on
board three days, when the ship came to an anchor off Portsmouth, the point
where the remainder of the passengers were to join her on that particular
day when the scene of this tale commences.

At this precise moment, then, the Montauk was lying at a single anchor,
not less than a league from the land, in a flat calm, with her three
topsails loose, the courses in the brails, and with all those signs of
preparation about her that are so bewildering to landsmen, but which
seamen comprehend as clearly as words. The captain had no other business
there than to take on board the wayfarers, and to renew his supply of
fresh meat and vegetables; things of so familiar import on shore as to be
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