during the various scenes, dangers and wanderings of these years of my youth, i had not forgotten the home of my boyhood; and, now that i was becoming somewhat settled in my prospects, i wrote an affectionate letter to my mother. after a delay of several months, i received two letters in reply, one from my mother, and the other from my sister. that from my mother is inserted in this narrative, for the purpose of exhibiting to the young reader, who may fancy that his parents feel no very great interest in his welfare, another instance of the deep, undying love of a mother’s heart.

bladen, december 23, 1818.

my dearly beloved child:—

i cannot describe the sensations i felt when i received a letter from your dear hands. it was the greatest pleasure i have enjoyed since you left me. i have never been sorry but once since you left, and that has been ever since; but i hope the almighty has ordered it all for the best. i have never forgotten to pray for you morning, night, and many times in the day, though i talked very little about you to any one, because i did not wish to make any one else uncomfortable. but that god, who knows the secrets of all hearts, sees how sincerely thankful i am because he has been pleased to hear my prayers that i might hear from you again; for i was fearful i never should. but now i have great hopes that the blessed lord will protect you, and spare our lives to see each other again.

my dear child, you have not stated how you came to be separated from the crew when the ship was taken, nor how you have been employed since. you must be the best judge whether it will be safe for you to venture home. it would be a great pleasure for me to see you, but if there is danger of bad consequences, on account of your having been in the service against your country, and if any bad consequence should follow your coming home, it would make me more unhappy than i have ever been yet. if there is no danger, i should be very happy to have you come home and learn a trade; as, thank god, i have it in my power to do something for you; and nothing shall be wanting to make you comfortable, that i can do. you say it may be one or two years before you come; but pray come the first opportunity, as you will be gladly received by us all. if it is a want of money that prevents you from coming, and you cannot work your passage, perhaps you can get one by showing the captain of some ship my letter, and he may depend on being paid as soon as you arrive in england. if neither will do, send me word; and if there is any place in london where your passage money can be paid, i will pay it there for you. you are right in supposing yourself twenty-two years of age on the nineteenth of march (1819). your sister maria is twenty. she is grown a fine young woman; i am happy to say is very steady and thoughtful; though not of a very strong constitution. she is at service in london. she has written to you, and i hope you will receive her letter with this.

i hope, my dear child, you will not fail to come home. send me all the particulars of your life, at the first opportunity. i am afraid you have gone through a great deal of trouble and hardship since i saw you. but the merciful lord has been pleased to bring you through the whole, and he is able to carry you through more, if you put your trust in him. it gave me great comfort to hear that you are so well disposed, as i am sure you are, from the spirit of your letter; it was more pleasure to me than if you had gained all the riches in the world. i wish i was as well acquainted with religion as yourself; but i will try to make a better use of my time, and should it please god to let you come home, i hope you will be the means of great good to me.

there are a number of methodist meetings about us. the people who live in our yard are very strict ones. i never disliked the methodists; i think they have a great gift of religion. i sent your letter to lady churchill, formerly lady francis spencer. both lord and lady churchill were glad to hear from you, and are your well-wishers. the duke and duchess of marlborough are both dead. blenheim is much altered for the worse, since his son has become duke. lord francis, that was, makes a very good master; and when the duke died, he left blenheim. his country house is in the forest. your father is his carpenter in the timber yard; he has filled this situation six weeks. he comes home every saturday; and next spring they are going to place me and the children in a lodge near him. we hope to have the happiness of seeing you there.

it is eight years the twelfth of last july, since you left us. * * * your father, brothers and sisters all join with me in hearty prayers to almighty god, that his blessing may be upon you; and if it is his blessed will, we shall see you again; if it is not, we must be resigned to what is fitting for us, and pray that we may all meet in heaven, where all tears shall be wiped away. that god may bless you, my dear child, is the sincere prayer of

your ever loving mother,

susan newman.

notwithstanding the earnestness of my mother’s spirit, breathed out so ardently for my return in this letter, i dared not risk myself on british soil. her expression of sorrow, if bad consequences should ensue, had its weight in determining me to remain; but a conversation with the celebrated lorenzo dow, who had recently returned from his english tour, settled the question. he said he had seen four men hung, who, like me, had been in the service of some other country, after deserting from their own. this was quite sufficient; for, much as i longed to visit the homes of my childhood, i had no disposition to do it with a gallows suspended over my head. i therefore wrote my mother, that, not having a regular discharge from the navy, it would be best for me to continue where i was; but i begged them to seriously think of emigrating themselves; since my father-in-law, being an excellent carpenter, could do well in new england. alas! it was not for him ever to consider of this proposition; for, when my letter arrived, they were performing the sad obsequies of death over his breathless corpse. a prevailing fever had terminated a life of fifty-seven years, after a sickness of two weeks. my mother, now a widow the second time, after twelve years of pleasant union with her last husband, thought it unfitting, at her time of life, to venture across the ocean; and therefore all my plans for collecting my relatives on american soil, were blasted in the bud.

perhaps, after following me through the changes of my life at sea, the reader may feel a little interest in knowing how i succeeded as landsman. he has seen me escaping the breakers that met me on my first approach to the shore; and now, if his patience be not entirely exhausted, he may pursue my fortunes a little further.

he left me, when my episode about home led him away from the thread of the narrative, busily at work as a filer of steel-yards, at mansfield, conn. from thence, i returned to ashford, where i continued a year or two. at last, doubting the stability of my employer, and fearing lest what he owed me might be lost, i took up the whole in the shape of a wagon and a stock of steel-yards; then, purchasing a horse, i travelled from place to place to sell them; and in this manner got into a business which i have followed more or less ever since. after acquiring, by economy and diligence, a few hundred dollars, i opened a small store in mansfield, with the intention of leading a still more settled life; though about that time my mind was strongly exercised with a desire to devote myself to the religious benefit of seamen. my sense of unfitness for so great a work, at last prevailed; and i proceeded with my plans of worldly business.

the days of which i write were those on which the bright star of temperance had scarcely shone. ministers, deacons, christians, all used the deadly drinks. was it surprising, therefore, that i, but so short a time before a rum-loving sailor, fell into the common current, and became a rum-seller? no, it was not strange! but it was a strange, a glorious display of restraining grace, that prevented me from being drawn into the snare i was thus thoughtlessly spreading for the poor drunkard.

but even in those early days of temperance, i was not without my trials of mind in respect to the unholy traffic. once, when at hartford, making purchases for my store, of which rum formed no inconsiderable article, i accidentally heard of a lecture on temperance, to be delivered at dr. hawes’s church. this was the first discourse on the subject i ever heard. the speaker excited a deep interest in my mind, as he told of the origin of rum, its primary costliness and rank among medicines, of the growth of distilleries, the consequent decline in its price, and the attending spread of drunkenness. so deadly a plot against the peace of the world, he said, could only have been contrived in hell.

this discourse fell like a light on some dark opaque; it illuminated my understanding, disturbed my conscience. no sleep visited my eyes that night. duty said, “send back your team without rum in the morning.” fear of men, public opinion, interest said, “no. every other store-keeper sells it, and so may you.” the latter argument prevailed. conscience was rebuked; the rum went to my store.

shortly after this struggle, i married a member of the methodist church in hartford. we removed to somers, connecticut, where i continued to sell rum, though, as before, with great caution and with much inward struggling of mind. at last i could hold out no longer, and in spite of the example of ministers, (some of whom often drank, though sparingly, at my house,) in spite of the sneers of the scornful, and of the fear of loss to my trade, i gave it up! it was for the poor, untaught sailor to set the example of sacrifice to the store-keepers of somers. three others imitated me in a short time. not to me, but to the grace of god, be the glory of my decision and resolution. i can assure the modern rum-seller, whose lashed and tortured soul still cleaves to the rum barrel and the toddy stick, for the sake of the profit, that i have ever regarded that act as among the best of my life.

finding my present residence ill adapted to a successful prosecution of business, i closed up my concerns, and removed to wilbraham, mass., the place of my present abode; a pleasant town, but which is rendered more so by the very superior opportunities it affords for the education of children, in its most excellent and flourishing academy.

here my life glided pleasantly and quietly along, affording no incidents worthy of special record. happiness presided at my domestic board, prosperity accompanied my temporal enterprises, and religion reigned as the ruling genius over the whole. my ways were committed unto the lord, and he directed my steps; for which i praise him with my whole heart.

in this delightful manner several years fled away; when, my business having led me, on one occasion, to new york, i heard that my old ship, the macedonian, was in port. animated with that regard for an old ship, which always inspires a genuine seaman, i went on board. she was so altered, i scarcely recognised her. change, with an unsparing hand, had remodeled the decks and cabins, so that i felt somewhat lost where once every timber was familiar. this was rather a disappointment; however, i stood on the spot where i had fought in the din of battle; and with many a serious reflection recalled the horrors of that dreadful scene. the sailors, on witnessing the care with which i examined every thing, and supposing me to be a landsman, eyed me rather closely. seeing their curiosity, i said, “shipmates, i have seen this vessel before to-day: probably before any of you ever did.”

the old tars gathered round me, eagerly listening to my tale of the battle, and they bore patiently, and with becoming gravity, the exhortation to lead a religious life, with which i closed my address. they appeared to be very susceptible of religious feeling; as, indeed, sailors are generally. should any doubt this fact, let them hear the rev. mr. chase, in new york, or rev. e. t. taylor, in boston, in whose usually crowded houses of worship, the face of the rough, weather-beaten son of the ocean may be seen bedewed with penitential tears; especially at the church of the latter gentleman—than whom none know better how to adapt discourse to a sailor’s soul.

during the flight of these years a constant correspondence had been kept up between me and my mother. she had constantly urged me to revisit my native land. to remove the last obstacle, she addressed a letter to lady churchill, to ascertain if i might safely return. she sent her the following note, the original of which is still in my possession:

lower brook street, nov. 7, 1821.

mrs newman,—

i consulted my brother william upon the subject on which you wished for advice, as neither lord c. nor myself could undertake to answer your inquiry; and i am glad to hear from him the following explanation in reply: “there is nothing to prevent mrs. newman’s son from coming home; for when the war was terminated, he was safe, even if he had entered into the enemy’s service; but he will of course forfeit the pay and any prize money due to him.”

i am, much yours,

f. churchill.

this note relieved me of all fear, but now it had become no small undertaking for me to go to europe. to go alone would be very expensive; but to take my family, consisting now of a wife and three children, was much more so. hence, i put it off year after year, still writing and begging them to visit me. when the late lamented dr. fisk was in england, he visited my mother and brother, and related to them some of the facts in my life, which he had often heard me mention. she sent me two silver table spoons, which had belonged to my father, by the doctor’s hands. my mother wrote about this visit of that “great, good man” with evident satisfaction.

at last, i received a letter from home, which decided me to undertake the often postponed and long delayed voyage to my native land. this letter stated that there was a young man in albany, with whose friends they were all well acquainted, and that he was about to visit his mother. i found this gentleman, whose name was william warrington, and agreed to join him with my family in his intended voyage. this agreement made, we set about making preparations for the undertaking. if the reader desires to know the events of that visit, he must consult the ensuing chapter.