This is the happiest period of my life, and has been so since I left the hospital at Batavia. I do not know that I have ever passed a happier summer than the present has been. I should be perfectly satisfied with everything, did not my time hang so idle on my hands at the Harbour. I want something to occupy my leisure moments, and do not despair of yet being able to find a mode of life more suitable to the activity of my early days. I have friends enough--more than I deserve--and, yet, a man needs occupation, who has the strength and disposition to be employed. That which is to happen is in the hands of Providence, and I humbly trust I shall be cared for, to the end, as I have been cared for, through so many scenes of danger and trial. My great wish is that this picture of a sailor's risks and hardships, may have some effect in causing this large and useful class of men to think on the subject of their habits. I entertain no doubt that the money I have disposed of far worse than if I had thrown it into the sea, which went to reduce me to that mental hell, the 'horrors,' and which, on one occasion, at least, drove me to the verge of suicide, would have formed a sum, had it been properly laid by, on which I might now have been enjoying an old age of comfort and respectability. It is seldom that a seaman cannot lay by a hundred dollars in a twelvemonth--oftentimes I have earned double that amount, beyond my useful outlays--and a hundred dollars a year, at the end of thirty years, would give such a man an independence for the rest of his days. This is far from all, however; the possession of means would awaken the desire of advancement in the calling, and thousands, who now remain before the mast, would long since have been officers, could they have commanded the self-respect that property is apt to create. On the subject of liquor, I can say nothing that has not often been said by others, in language far better than I can use. I do not think I was as bad, in this respect, as perhaps a majority of my associates; yet, this narrative will show how often the habit of drinking to excess impeded my advance. It was fast converting me into a being inferior to a man, and, but for God's mercy, might have rendered me the perpetrator of crimes that it would shock me to think of, in my sober and sane moments. The past, I have related as faithfully as I have been able so to do. The future is with God; to whom belongeth power, and glory, for ever and ever! The End. Footnotes [1]: The writer left a blank for this regiment, and now inserts it from memory. It is probable he is wrong.