Page:Narrative of the life and adventures of Paul Cuffe, a Pequot Indian.djvu/8

Rh This is an unhealthy place for strangers, our crew being mostly sick while there. We stopped at this place about three weeks, during which time we took in a cargo of Coffee and Sugar. From this port we sailed sometime in October 1812. At this time the government of my native country and Great Britain were at war. During this voyage, which was made to New-York, we were chased by a British man-of-war for more than four hours, while off Bermuda; but we out-sailed her and made our escape. When off Cape Hatteras, we lost our fore top-sail during a heavy squall of wind. We reached the quarantine at New-York, after a passage of 13 days. Here we had to lay to for 3 days, for the purpose of being examined by the health officer; after which we went up to the city, where we discharged our freight which took about one week, when we again sailed for Westport, the place of my nativity. Here I saw my father and mother, with whom I stayed but 5 weeks before I again left my peaceful home and all the many little endearments which always surround the paternal mansion, for New Bedford, a sea port town in the south-eastern part of Massachusetts, where I shipped aboard the Atlas, a whaleman, bound to the Brazil banks. We hoisted sail just at night, and steered away in an east northeast direction until we crossed the Grand banks, and then stood away for the Azores, where, after 20 days' sail, we made the Island of Carvo, one of that group of Islands. Here we stopped a few days and took in 500 bushels of potatoes and 100 bushels of onions. There was no harbor in this place; so we were obliged to go ashore in our boats. The people brought down the above articles on their backs. Men, women and children were all engaged in supplying us with the above articles. We paid them in oil, of which they were very fond. What they do with it I know not. They were a very kind people to strangers, but poor. From this place we sailed for the Cape De Verds, on the coast of Africa. We were forty-two days in sailing from the former to the latter island. We touched at the island of Buenavista, one of this group, where we took in thirty-two hogs, for which we paid corn, meal and bread. These people are of a very dark hue, and speak the Potuguese language. Here we stopped but four days, when we set all sails and steered away a southwest course, for the Brazil Banks, where we arrived, after a sail of forty-two days.