Long before the art of Joseph Conrad created _Lord Jim_ to follow the star of his romantic destiny to the somber, misty coast of Patusan, an American sailor lived and dared amazingly among the sullen people of those same mysterious islands of the Far East. He was of the race of mariners whose ships were first to display the Stars and Stripes in those far-distant waters and to challenge the powerful monopolies of the British and Dutch East India companies. Only seven years earlier, in fact, the American ship _Empress of China_ had ventured on the pioneering voyage to Canton. The seas still swarmed with pirates and every merchantman carried a heavy battery of guns and a crew which knew to use them. Amid such conditions were trained the sailors who were to man the _Constitution_ and the other matchless frigates of 1812. The American ship _Enterprise_ sailed from Batavia for Manila on the twentieth of January, 1793, and laid a course to pass through the Straits of Macassar. Head winds and currents kept her beating to and fro in this torrid passage for six weeks on end, and the grumbling crew began to wonder if they had signed in another _Flying Dutchman_. Food was running short, for this protracted voyage had not been expected, and while the _Enterprise_ drifted becalmed on the greasy tide, another ship was sighted about five miles distant. Captain Hubbard ordered the chief mate, David Woodard, to take a boat and five seamen and row off to this other vessel and try to buy some stores. The men were William Gideon, John Cole, Archibald Miller, Robert Gilbert, and George Williams. Expecting to be gone only a few hours, they took no food or water, and all they carried with them was an ax, a boat-hook, two pocket-knives, a disabled musket, and forty dollars. It was sunset when they pulled alongside the other ship, which was China bound and had no provisions to spare. A strong squall and heavy rains prevented them from returning to the _Enterprise_ that night, and they stayed where they were until next morning. Then the wind shifted and blew fresh from the southward to sweep the _Enterprise_ on her course, and she had already vanished hull down and under. Stout-hearted David Woodard guessed he could find her again, confident that Captain Hubbard would not desert him, and his men cheerfully tumbled into the boat after him.