It was necessary for me to get to sea,
for there I was shut out from all excesses, by discipline and necessity.
After looking around us, and debating the matter among ourselves, a party
of five of us shipped in the Stadtdeel. What the others contemplated I do
not know, but it was my intention to double Good Hope, and never to
return. Chances enough would offer on the other side, to make a man
comfortable, and I was no stranger to the ways of that quarter of the
world. I could find enough to do between Bombay and Canton; and, if I
could not, there were the islands and all of the Pacific before me. I
could do a seaman's whole duty, was now in tolerable health and strength,
and knew that such men were always wanted. Wherever a ship goes, Jack must
go with her, and ships, dollars and hogs, are now to be met with all over
the globe.
The Stadtdeel lay at Dort, and we went to that place to join her. She was
not ready for sea, and as things moved Dutchman fashion, slow and sure, we
were about six weeks at Dort before she sailed. This ship was a vessel of
the size of a frigate, and carried twelve guns. She had a crew of about
forty souls, which was being very short-handed. The ship's company was a
strange mixture of seamen, though most of them came from the north of
Europe. Among us were Russians, Danes, Swedes, Prussians, English,
Americans, and but a very few Dutch.
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