I tried to
read and pray with him, but cannot say that he showed any consciousness of
his true situation. We touched at St. Helena for water, and, Napoleon
being then dead, had no difficulty in getting ashore. After watering we
sailed again, and reached our port in due time.
I was now in Europe, a part of the world that I had little hopes of seeing
ten months before. Still it was my desire to get to America, and I was
permitted to remain in the ship. I was treated in the kindest manner by
captain Bunting, and Mr. Bowden, the mate, who gave me everything I
needed. At the end of a few weeks we sailed again, for New York, where we
arrived in the month of August, 1840,
I left the Plato at the quarantine ground, going to the Sailor's Retreat.
Here the physician told me I never could recover the use of my limb as I
had possessed it before, but that the leg would gradually grow stronger,
and that I might get along without crutches in the end. All this has
turned out to be true. The pain had long before left me, weakness being
now the great difficulty. The hip-joint is injured, and this in a way that
still compels me to rely greatly on a stick in walking.
At the Sailor's Retreat, I again met Mr. Miller. I now, for the first
time, received regular spiritual advice, and it proved to be of great
benefit to me. After remaining a month at the Retreat, I determined to
make an application for admission to the Sailor's Snug Harbour, a richly
endowed asylum for seamen, on the same island.
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