This Being All Done With, We Gave
One Day To Bending Our Sails; And At Night, Every Sail, From The
Courses To The Skysails, Was Bent, And Every Studding-Sail Ready
For Setting.
Before our sailing, an unsuccessful attempt was made by one of
the crew of the California to effect an exchange with one of our
number.
It was a lad, between fifteen and sixteen years of age,
who went by the name of the "reefer," having been a midshipman in
an East India Company's ship. His singular character and story
had excited our interest ever since the ship came into the port.
He was a delicate, slender little fellow, with a beautiful pearly
complexion, regular features, forehead as white as marble, black
haired, curling beautifully, rounded, tapering, delicate fingers,
small feet, soft voice, gentle manners, and, in fact, every sign
of having been well born and bred. At the same time there was
something in his expression which showed a slight deficiency of
intellect. How great the deficiency was, or what it resulted from;
whether he was born so; whether it was the result of disease or
accident; or whether, as some said, it was brought on by his
distress of mind, during the voyage, I cannot say. From his own
account of himself, and from many circumstances which were known
in connection with his story, he must have been the son of a man
of wealth. His mother was an Italian woman. He was probably a
natural son, for in scarcely any other way could the incidents
of his early life be accounted for. He said that his parents did
not live together, and he seemed to have been ill treated by his
father. Though he had been delicately brought up, and indulged
in every way, (and he had then with him trinkets which had been
given him at home,) yet his education had been sadly neglected;
and when only twelve years old, he was sent as midshipman in the
Company's service. His own story was, that he afterwards ran
away from home, upon a difficulty which he had with his father,
and went to Liverpool, whence he sailed in the ship Rialto,
Captain Holmes, for Boston. Captain Holmes endeavored to get
him a passage back, but there being no vessel to sail for some
time, the boy left him, and went to board at a common sailor's
boarding-house, in Ann street, where he supported himself for a
few weeks by selling some of his valuables. At length, according
to his own account, being desirous of returning home, he went to
a shipping-office, where the shipping articles of the California
were open. Upon asking where the ship was going, he was told by
the shipping-master that she was bound to California. Not knowing
where that was, he told him that he wanted to go to Europe, and
asked if California was in Europe. The shipping-master answered
him in a way which the boy did not understand, and advised him to
ship.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 214 of 324
Words from 111396 to 111903
of 170236
