Page:Narrative of the life and adventures of Paul Cuffe, a Pequot Indian.djvu/6

Rh Rice and Logwood. Here we lay three months in making preparation for sea again. From this place we made out into the broad Atlantic with all sails fluttering in the balmy breeze, and all hands full of hope and buoyant with expectation. This was a long, tedious voyage, as the reader will readily imagine when I inform him that we sailed a great number of days in a northward direction, until we made the Grand Banks; then we steered away for the northern coast of Scotland, which we reached in about fifty days. Thence we continued our course around the Orknies into the Northern Sea, and made the entrance to the Baltic through what is called the Sleeve; thence along the coast of Copenhagen northward to Gottenburgh, a flourishing town in West Gothland in Sweden. Here we lay six weeks, sold our lading, and took in a load of iron, steel and hemp. From thence we sailed for Elsinore, a seaport of Denmark, where we took in a number of passengers for Philadelphia, at which place we arrived after a long passage, somtime in the month of September, 1809. During this voyage we had much rough weather; so much so, that we were compelled to throw overboard fifty tons of iron while on the Grand Banks. During this gale we lost our fore-lop-mast, jib-boom and long boat.

At this port we sold our load; after which my father put me to a high school in Williams' Alley, where I remained two years. This was an excellent school, taught by a Friend Quaker, a very worthy man, whom I shall ever have cause to respect for his many acts of kindness towards me. After the close of my term at school, I returned home to Westport, after an absence of three years and five months. If the reader has ever been a long while absent from home, he can easily imagine my feelings on my arrival at the dear paternal mansion. Here I again saw my father and mother, brothers and sisters, where I remained but three weeks before I again left the fire side of my dear parents to launch out upon the broad Atlantic's briny bosom. At the expiration of the above term, I shipped aboard of the brig Traveller, Capt. Thomas Wainer, for Kennebec, state of Maine. On our passage to this place, our vessel capsized about 10 o'clock at night, which caused us much trouble to get her righted again; but after four hours' struggle, and by the aid of our Great Father, we got the ship to rights, and went on our passage, which we