I should be perfectly satisfied with
everything, did not my time hang so idle on my hands at the Harbour. I
want something to occupy my leisure moments, and do not despair of yet
being able to find a mode of life more suitable to the activity of my
early days. I have friends enough--more than I deserve--and, yet, a man
needs occupation, who has the strength and disposition to be employed.
That which is to happen is in the hands of Providence, and I humbly trust
I shall be cared for, to the end, as I have been cared for, through so
many scenes of danger and trial.
My great wish is that this picture of a sailor's risks and hardships, may
have some effect in causing this large and useful class of men to think on
the subject of their habits. I entertain no doubt that the money I have
disposed of far worse than if I had thrown it into the sea, which went to
reduce me to that mental hell, the 'horrors,' and which, on one occasion,
at least, drove me to the verge of suicide, would have formed a sum, had
it been properly laid by, on which I might now have been enjoying an old
age of comfort and respectability. It is seldom that a seaman cannot lay
by a hundred dollars in a twelvemonth--oftentimes I have earned double
that amount, beyond my useful outlays--and a hundred dollars a year, at
the end of thirty years, would give such a man an independence for the
rest of his days.
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