He Was Well Qualified For The Business, Having Been Clerk In A
Counting-House In Boston.
He had been troubled for some time with
the rheumatism, which unfitted him for the wet and exposed duty of
a sailor on the coast.
For a week or ten days all was life on board.
The people came off to look and to buy - men, women, and children;
and we were continually going in the boats, carrying goods and
passengers, - for they have no boats of their own. Everything must
dress itself and come aboard and see the new vessel, if it were only
to buy a paper of pins. The agent and his clerk managed the sales,
while we were busy in the hold or in the boats. Our cargo was an
assorted one; that is, it consisted of everything under the sun.
We had spirits of all kinds, (sold by the cask,) teas, coffee, sugars,
spices, raisins, molasses, hardware, crockery-ware, tinware, cutlery,
clothing of all kinds, boots and shoes from Lynn, calicoes and cottons
from Lowell, crepes, silks; also shawls, scarfs, necklaces, jewelry,
and combs for the ladies; furniture; and in fact, everything that can
be imagined, from Chinese fire-works to English cart-wheels - of which
we had a dozen pairs with their iron rims on.
The Californians are an idle, thriftless people, and can make
nothing for themselves. The country abounds in grapes, yet they
buy bad wines made in Boston and brought round by us, at an immense
price, and retail it among themselves at a real (12½ cents) by
the small wine-glass.
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