And now I started on my voyage. I had never ventured on the sea before without dread of shipwreck and drowning. This time I had no such fear. On the contrary, as the vessel threaded her way among the rocks and islands of Boston Harbor, I experienced a strange and unaccountable elevation of soul. I had not felt so cheerful, so hopeful, so happy, for many years. And this delightful joyousness of soul continued during the whole of the voyage. Yet I had never gone to sea at so dangerous a season. And I never encountered such fearful and long-continued storms. Before we had fairly lost sight of the last point of land, the winds, which were already raging with unusual violence, began to blow more furiously. They fell on us in the most fearful blasts, and roared around us in a deafening howl. The sea was thrown into the wildest uproar. The vessel was tossed and tumbled about in the most merciless manner. One moment she was plunging head foremost into the deep; the next she was climbing the most stupendous waves. Now her right wheel was vainly laboring deep in the water, while her left was spinning uselessly in the air; then her right wheel was whirling in the air, while her left was splurging in the deep. Sometimes the waves swept over the vessel, while at other times they would strike her so rudely on the side, that she staggered through all her timbers. After the storm had raged for two or three days, there came what are called white squalls. A light grey cloud appears in the distance, and as it approaches you, it sends forth lightnings, accompanied with hurried bursts of thunder. A furious storm of hail or snow immediately follows. The howl of the tempest rises to a yell, and the squall, as it sweeps along in its fury, cuts off the tops of the waves, and scatters them in foam over the surface of the deep like a mantle of snow. The first of those squalls went right through our large square sail, tearing it to shreds. Another sent a wave on board which snapped in pieces stanchions of wrought iron thicker than my arms, and carried away one of our best boats. And this unspeakable uproar of the elements continued for several days. At times I crept on deck for a few moments, and, holding by the rigging, gazed on the wild magnificence of the appalling scene. And all this time my heart, instead of being tortured with its customary fears, was full of a cheerful joyous confidence. It was as if some spirit of heaven had taken possession of my soul to give me sweet presentiments of the approach of better days. And so perhaps it was. I was moving onwards, though I knew it not, to a happier destiny, and the peace and joy I felt were as the dawn or twilight of the coming day of my redemption.