[Sidenote: Voyage to Surinam] To make a short story, my Uncle went down in the morning, & shipped & went the voyage.--I then wrote to my Mother, that I had got a voyage for myself & Uncle, & if those young men would come to Boston before I sailed, I would ship them off, rather than have them stay at home Idle, & upon expense all winter. The vessell was soon loaded, & we went to sea--my inexperienc, & being very sea-sick, for a while, rendered my situation very unpleasant, but I soon surmounted those deficulties; & began to injoy my new mode of life; after the opperation of David Jones’s medecine (sea-sickness) I felt my health improved, & by the time we arrived in Surinam, I felt quite well, and I found I was able to give pritty good satisfaction in my line of duty. My perticular attention to the officers, procured me some presents, by wh I was enabled to purchase a Barrel of molasses, & some fruit, for an adventure back to Boston. Nothing meterial took place, during the remainder of the voyage, worth noting; we returned to Boston in the spring of 1784, discharged our cargo, mollases, was paid our wages & seperated, each to home. My wages amouted to 21$, & by the sale of my bbl of Molases, & some my fruit, I was enabled to git myself a new suit of sailors cloaths, from the Slopshop, & carried home, & put into my Mothers hands, 20 silver Dollars--probably, the largest sum of money she had posses^{d.} since she had been a widow--& that, from her poor little sick Boy--her tears flowed freely, upon the occasion, but they were tears of gratitude to our heavenly Father, for his mercies to her child, in permitting his return home, in the injoyment of so much better health, than he left it--my own feelings, upon the occasion, can be better imagined than discribed. I tarried at home but a short time, before I returned to Boston, in persuit of employ; & spent the summer, with a Cap^{t.} Lombard, in the coasting business. In the fall I shipped, as a common sailor, & made several voyages to the W. Idies--returning from a voyage, in Dec^{r.} 1786, I was informed that my Brother, had fallen from mast-head, in the Delaware Bay, had Broken both his legs, one thigh, & put out of joint, one shoulder--and was then, in the Pensalvinia hospital, with one leg amputated. The Season was then so far advanced, that the navigation, was about closing with Ice, consequently, I was compelled to relinquish my visit, to my unfortunate Brother, untill the spring opened the navigation. Prehaps you will ask! why, G’d Father did not go on by land--but, my dear G. children, the mode of traveling then, was quite different from now, we had no railroads, no, steam conveyance, and scarcly, a carriage--even the mail, was carried upon horses--a stage coach was not known-- [Sidenote: Brotherly Love]