being allies of his king, England had a right to his services. Had not the man been as obstinate as a bull, and positively refused to go, I do believe we should have lost him. He was ordered into the boat at least half-a-dozen times, but swore he would not budge. Cooper had a little row with this boarding officer, but was silenced by the captain. After the news received from the sloop of war, it may be supposed we did not venture to anchor anywhere on English ground. Keeping the channel, we passed the Isle of Wight several times, losing on the flood, the distance made on the ebb. At length we got a slant and fetched out into the Atlantic, heading well to the southward, however. Our passage was long, even after we got clear, the winds carrying us down as low as Corvo, which island we made, and then taking us well north again. We had one very heavy blow that forced us to scud, the Sterling being one of the wettest ships that ever floated, when heading up to the sea. When near the American coast, we spoke an English brig that gave us an account of the affair between the Leopard and the Chesapeake, though he made his own countrymen come out second-best. Bitter were the revilings of Mr. Irish when the pilot told us the real state of the case. As was usual with this ship's luck, we tided it up the bay and river, and got safe alongside of the wharf at Philadelphia, at last. Here our crew was broken up, of course, and, with the exception of Jack Pugh, my brother apprentice, and Cooper, I never saw a single soul of them afterwards. Most of them went on to New York, and were swallowed up in the great vortex of seamen. Mr. Irish, I heard, died the next voyage he made, chief mate of an Indiaman. He was a prime fellow, and fit to command a ship. Such was my first voyage at sea, for I count the passage round from Halifax as nothing. I had been kept in the cabin, it is true, but our work had been of the most active kind. The Sterling must have brought up, and been got under way, between fifty and a hundred times; and as for tacking, waring, chappelling round, and box-hauling, we had so much of it by the channel pilots, that the old barky scarce knew which end was going foremost. In that day, a ship did not get from the Forelands up to London without some trouble, and great was our envy of the large blocks and light cordage of the colliers, which made such easy work for their men. We singled much of our rigging, the second voyage up the river, ourselves, and it was a great relief to the people. A set of grass foresheets, too, that we bought in Spain, got to be great favourites, though, in the end, they cost the ship the life of a very valuable man.