"Ann Jane Thornton stated that she is in the seventeenth year of her age. Her father, who is now a widower, took her and the rest of his family from Gloucestershire, where she was born, to Donegal, when she was six years old. He was owner of stores in that part of Ireland, and in good circumstances, and was always affectionate to her. She regretted that she had quitted her home, for her departure, of which she had given no previous notice to her father, must have caused him many a sorrowful hour. When she was only thirteen years old, she met Captain Alexander Burke, whose father resided in New York, and was the owner of vessels there; and, before she was fifteen, they became strongly attached to each other. Soon after, Burke was obliged to go to New York, and she took up the resolution to follow him. She quitted her father's house accompanied by a maid-servant and a boy, and, having procured a cabin-boy's dress, she exerted herself to obtain a passage to America. The servant-maid and boy took leave of her immediately upon her embarking, the latter being charged with a message to her father, informing him of her intention. By degrees she became reconciled to the labours of her new employment, but she beheld with joy the shores of New York, where she thought her labours would terminate. The moment she landed, she went off in her cabin-boy's dress to the house of Captain Burke's father, and said that she had worked under the captain's orders, and wished to be engaged by him again. It was by the father of the young man she was informed that his son had died only a few days before. America, however, was no place in which to look for sympathy. In the belief that the sea (which no doubt her affection for Burke recommended to her) was a more probable mode of existence than any she could adopt in the dress of her sex, she applied for and obtained a situation as cook and steward in the _Adelaide_, and, subsequently, in the _Rover_, in which latter vessel she sailed to St. Andrew's, where she fell in with Captain McIntire. The captain of the _Rover_ had agreed to take her to Belfast, but he received an order from the owners to sail for the West Indies, and, as she was resolved to return to her father as soon as possible, she refused to accompany him. For thirty-one months she had been engaged in these remarkable adventures, and participated in the most severe toils of the crews of which she formed part. "The Lord Mayor: And are you not weary of so harassing a life? "Girl: Yes. I am anxious to get home. I hope and believe that my father will forgive me for the sorrow I have caused him. I have had my own sorrows, too.