We got our scous after this, but the negro logged the whole transaction, as one may suppose. He was particularly set against me, as I had been ringleader in the cobbing. The weather continued bad, the watches were much fagged, and the ship gave no grog. At length I could stand it no longer, or thought I could not; and I led down betwixt decks, tapped a cask of gin, introduced the stem of a clean pipe and took a nip at the bowl. All my watch smoked this pipe pretty regularly, first at one cask and then at another, until we got into port. The larboard watch did the same, and I do think the strong liquor helped us along that time. As bad luck would have it, the cook's wood was stowed among the casks, and, one morning, just as the last of us had knocked off smoking, we saw the wool of this gentleman heaving in sight, through the hatch by which we went down. Still, nothing was said until we came to be paid off, when the darky came out with his yarn. I owned it all, and insisted we never could have brought the ship in, unless we had got the gin. I do believe both captain and owner were sorry we had been complained of, but they could not overlook the matter. I was mulcted five-and-twenty dollars, and left the ship. I know I did wrong, and I know that the owners did what was right; but I cannot help thinking, bad as gin is on a long pull, that this did us good. I was not driven from the ship; on the contrary, both master and Owners wished me to remain; but I felt a little savage, and quitted their employment. That I did not carry a very bad character away with me, is to be proved by the fact that I shipped, the same day, on board the Washington, a vessel bound to London, and which lay directly alongside of the Foster. I had the same berth as that I had just left, with the advantage of getting better wages. This voyage carried me to London for the first time since I left it in the Sterling. Too many years had elapsed, in the interval, for me to find any old acquaintances; and I had grown from a boy to a man. Here I got a little insight into the business of carrying passengers, our ship bringing more or less, each passage. I stuck by the Washington a year, making no less than three voyages in her; the last, as her chief mate. Nothing occurred worth mentioning in the four first passages across the Atlantic; but the fifth produced a little more variety.