Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/292

 Boston, the two victims cause the captain to be arrested. The captain is tried and sentenced by the learned judge to a fine of five hundred dollars — two hundred and fifty  for each of the sailors. Would His Honor consent to be struck with a handspike or lashed to the rigging and  flogged for two hundred and fifty dollars? I cannot help saying, "My God! is this our civilization?"

On the 2d of June we made the outer edge of the Gulf Stream. Here we experienced a change of weather. It is common for sailors to declare that they never saw it  blow so hard, or that it is the worst gale they ever experienced. All hands acknowledged now with truth that they had never seen it blow with greater violence. The rain came down in torrents; the thunder and lightning  were terrific. It was a regular old-fashioned Gulf gale, and there was scarcely a moment during the twelve  hours it lasted that we did not witness the lightning’s  red glare in some quarter of the heavens.

On the morning of the 9th, it being foggy, we took a cast of the lead and obtained soundings at eighty fathoms. This showed that we were nearing the coast, and our thoughts turned at once to the dear ones at home. Shortly after discharging a gun, a pilot boat hove in sight; and soon a pilot came on board and took charge  of the ship.

On the morning of the 10th we made the Highlands of Nevisink, at the mouth of New York harbor. After lying at quarantine a short time to receive the health  officers, we held on our course toward the city of New  York. Arriving off the Battery, all hands were called to muster, while the commodore expressed to us his thanks