At twelve midnight, in due course of time thereafter, Captain Cobb arrived at his home, and tapped on the window of a downstairs bedroom where he knew his wife to be sleeping. At first she thought it a twig of the sweetbriar bush. Then, “‘Who is there?’ cried she. ‘It is I,’ said I. ‘Well, what do you want?’ ‘To come in.’ ‘For what?’ said she. Before I could answer I heard my daughter, who was in bed with her, say, ‘Why, ma, it’s pa.’ It was enough. The doors flew open, and the greetings of affection and consanguinity multiplied upon me rapidly. Thus in a moment was I transported to the greatest earthly bliss a man can enjoy, viz: to the enjoyment of the happy family circle.” With these cheerful words Mr. Cobb ends his record. For a year or two thereafter he remained at home, and then was off again to sea. In 1819 and 1820 he made trips to Africa, and on the second voyage returned with so much fever aboard that the ship, as a means to disinfecting it, was sunk at the wharf. Then he retired from sea—he had built a fine Georgian house in 1800—and filled many offices ashore. His youth was crammed with adventure; he followed the sea longer than some of his mates; yet at the age of fifty-two, when he left it with a modest fortune, he showed as much zest in the management of more humdrum affairs: in due sequence he was town clerk, treasurer, inspector-general, representative to the General Court, senator, justice of the peace, and brigadier-general in the militia; no town committee seems to have been complete without him; he was a steadfast member of the liberal church which had taken possession of the old North Parish. And on one of those foreign voyages he had had painted a portrait of himself: a gallant, high-bred youth, with “banged” hair and curls, in Directoire dress, rolling collar, muslin stock and frills. The lovely colors of the old pastel hold their own, the soft blue of the surtout, the keen eyes, the handsome, alert face. A young man who knew something of his worth, Captain Cobb, and a young man who made exceptional opportunity to put that worth to the test.