"In the course of his testimony he also related that when he was about twelve years of age he lived upon an island where there was no house but that of his father. Being one evening near night sent on an errand alone, he became afraid that he should meet with some wild beast that would attack him. He crossed to a fence in order to cut a stick to defend himself; but after cutting it, the thought occurred that he was not on his father's ground, and as he had no right to the stick it was not likely it would serve to defend him. On which he laid it down, near the place he had taken it from and in recrossing the fence laid his hand on a loose piece of wood which was on their own ground resting against the fence. It proved to be a club, which he took up, and went cheerfully on his way."[65] It was while engaged in activity of this kind that he met "the pale messenger." His health began to fail him early in the spring of 1817. In April, however, he was well enough to attend Quarterly Meeting, but in June he was "on the bed of languishing." An eminent Rhode Island physician was summoned but he could not heal him. He doubtless then realized what he himself expressed in these words to Samuel R. Fisher, February 28, 1817: "May we often call to remembrance that we have no certain containing city here but above all things may we seek one to come whose builder is God that when we put off this body of mortality we may be clothed with the spirit of immortality that we may be prepared and favored to experience that glorious regeneration and friendship of everlasting peace." On the morning of July 27 the Captain took solemn leave of his family. The hand that had guided the _Traveller_ to so many ports was now so enfeebled that it was limp in the grasp of the little grandchildren. He shook hands with all the relations and the immediate members of his own household. As he bade them farewell it was "as broken a time," wrote his brother John, "as wast ever known amongst us." "Not many days hence," he said to his neighbors, "and ye shall see the glory of God; I know that my works are gone to judgment before me but it is all well, it is all well." Day by day he kept failing and on first day morning at two o'clock, September 9, the Captain was borne away on the invisible but irresistible tide.[66]