The season was rather early for work among the shipping, consequently I was idle. Sailors were needed for a ship ready for Liverpool, but no one wanted to leave Mobile. The wages, eighteen dollars a month, remained the same, and advance pay of fifty dollars was offered and increased to one hundred, so I concluded to accept it. The trip to England would take about five weeks, and, by immediately returning, I should still have a long winter for work. The giving of nearly six months' advance pay was to evade the marine law in regard to discharging sailors in a foreign port. If sailors deserted on a vessel's arriving, the owners were not responsible. My name was signed on the articles for the full voyage. Campbell, the boarding-house keeper, got the one hundred dollars and handed my share to me. I sent part of it to New York and retained twenty dollars for myself. Bidding my acquaintances good-bye and promising to be back in ten weeks, I went by steamboat down the bay and reported for duty on the full-rigged ship Annie Size. Campbell's responsibility for the advance money then ceased. That was exactly thirty-seven years ago, and I have never seen Campbell nor Mobile since. The Annie Size was a ship of one thousand tons burthen, loaded with cotton for the Liverpool market. The difficulty in getting a crew detained us several days. Two other men and I had made up our minds to make a short cut in the voyage. The plan was to steal the ship's boat, get ashore and foot it back to Mobile. As we had our advance money, there was no particular desire on our part to see Liverpool. The next morning, while the mates were eating breakfast, two of us got into the boat. The third man weakened and squarely "flunked." With only us two to steer as we had planned, our little scheme had to fail. The second mate had come from the cabin and had seen us going away. He called the mate, and that gentleman hailed another ship to send a boat to him. In the meantime we were doing our best to reach shore. The other boat, with a full crew, caught up with us within a few yards of the shore. We were taken back to the ship and handcuffed until the day of sailing. Finally, the full crew was on board, and made a class of sailors that the mate had no use for. Americans, Irish, Irish Americans--men of that class usually stick together; on the other hand, a mixed crew of all nationalities does the reverse. The anchor was weighed, our trip for Liverpool was begun, and our destination would not be reached too soon for any of us. The first day at sea war was declared. Our mate was the notorious bully, Billy Shackleford. At one o'clock he came to the forecastle door and in a gruff voice ordered watch on deck. "And he'd be ---- if there would be any afternoon watch below on his ship!" He was curtly told to "Go to ----" "Do you fellows know who Billy Shackleford is?" "Yes, we know all about you, and any monkey business on your part, overboard you go!"