Chapter 1

HOW WELLINGBOROUGH REDBURN'S TASTE FOR THE SEA WAS BORN AND BRED IN
HIM

"Wellingborough, as you are going to sea, suppose you take this
shooting-jacket of mine along; it's just the thing--take it, it will
save the expense of another. You see, it's quite warm; fine long skirts,
stout horn buttons, and plenty of pockets."

Out of the goodness and simplicity of his heart, thus spoke my elder
brother to me, upon the eve of my departure for the seaport.

"And, Wellingborough," he added, "since we are both short of money, and
you want an outfit, and I Have none to give, you may as well take my
fowling-piece along, and sell it in New York for what you can get.--Nay,
take it; it's of no use to me now; I can't find it in powder any more."

I was then but a boy. Some time previous my mother had removed from New
York to a pleasant village on the Hudson River, where we lived in a
small house, in a quiet way. Sad disappointments in several plans which
I had sketched for my future life; the necessity of doing something for
myself, united to a naturally roving disposition, had now conspired
within me, to send me to sea as a sailor.

For months previous I had been poring over old New York papers,
delightedly perusing the long columns of ship advertisements, all of
which possessed a strange, romantic charm to me. Over and over again I
devoured such announcements as the following:

"FOR BREMEN.

"The coppered and copper-fastened brig Leda, having nearly completed her
cargo, will sail for the above port on Tuesday the twentieth of May.
For freight or passage apply on board at Coenties Slip."

To my young inland imagination every word in an advertisement like this,
suggested volumes of thought.

A brig! The very word summoned up the idea of a black, sea-worn craft,
with high, cozy bulwarks, and rakish masts and yards.

Coppered and copper-fastened! That fairly smelt of the salt water! How
different such vessels must be from the wooden, one-masted, green-and-
white-painted sloops, that glided up and down the river before our
house on the bank.

Nearly completed her cargo! How momentous the announcement; suggesting
ideas, too, of musty bales, and cases of silks and satins, and filling
me with contempt for the vile deck-loads of hay and lumber, with which
my river experience was familiar.

"Will sail on Tuesday the 20th of May"--and the newspaper bore date the
fifth of the month! Fifteen whole days beforehand; think of that; what
an important voyage it must be, that the time of sailing was fixed upon
so long beforehand; the river sloops were not used to make such
prospective announcements.

"For freight