I have seen sixty or seventy at his sabbath-morning prayer meetings, and a hundred sailors at his stated hours for preaching. The next individual that came to our help, was our christian brother Philips; he soon caught the true spirit of a revivalist. I began to think, that as we had been so successful in the lower pool, we might try our net in the upper pool. Brother P. therefore, took the oversight of our western district, early in the spring, 1818. We met together to consult as to the best means to adopt to strengthen each other's hands; when it was resolved,-that we would have monthly meetings, alternately, in the upper and lower pools, by which all the brethren might meet together. This was the cause of much joy to all employed in the conversion of sailors. Fifteen months rolled away; then the Port of London Society' was formed, the 18th of March, 1818, at the City of London Tavern. Our prayer meetings commenced 16th December. In the year before this, many a so-called christian seemed to view it as a kind of presumption for a sailor to seek religious instruction; resenting it as an impertinent encroachment on ground belonging exclusively to other classes. I remember having been stopped three times, and not allowed to pray, merely because I was a sailor. Were these converted? So was I. Were these the members of Christ? So was I. In this year, several captains were savingly converted to God:Hayes, Mills, Morton, Robson, and pious Peter, Mainger, and Eady. I would just name one single case. A mate got into the steerage, determined not to be seen, but the Lord found him out; and who should this be but James Cowie, whose usefulness was manifested, ere he died in the Lord! In the latter part of 1818, we greatly multiplied, so that we could hold four or five meetings a night, in the lower pool; while brother P. was labouring, with great success, in the upper pool. In fact, we were determined to discharge Satan out of our coast altogether. This grain of mustard seed has now become a great tree-this tender plant a tall cedar in Lebanon; and our Bethel is now waving, north and south, east and west.

:

I would now notice one thing, at a meeting which was held. It appeared, all at once, that the ship had got aground. All the officers on the quarter-deck were completely panic struck-there were none to give the word of command-till, all at once, a man of the name of Boanerges stept forward, and broke the silence, by crying out, with a loud voice, "How much owest thou unto thy Lord ?" He exclaimed, "I owe him £100; and I'll pay him directly." Another called out, "Well, if you owe him £100, I owe him £200." Why, the ship was afloat in an instant, sailing at the rate of ten knots; and ere the was up, and the sails stowed, and safe moored at an anchor, the worthy chairman got all the cargo he needed, £6,000. Now, if your net be over the right side, you will not be ashamed to call brother Peter, James, and Jolin, to give you a pull. At another meeting, for the same cause, held at the City of London Tavern, one of the friends came forward, and, addressing the chair, cried out, "What is it that stops us from succeeding -is it money? Sir, I will give you a check for £500." So that it was hard work to keep the people's hands out

voyage

of their pockets. Many purses were entirely emptied. The people came on purpose to help us; and help us they did in good earnest, and sent us away rejoicing. May this be your case, and the Lord shall have all the glory!

LOADING FOR HOME.

We turned-in early, knowing that we might expect an early call; and sure enough before the stars had quite faded, "All hands ahoy! and we were turned-to, heaving out ballast. A regulation of the port forbids any ballast to be thrown overboard; accordingly, our longboat was lined inside with rough boards and brought alongside the gang-way, but where one tub-full went into the boat, twenty went overboard. This is done by every vessel, for the ballast can make but little difference in the channel; and it saves more than a week of labour, which would be spent in loading the boats, rowing them to the point, and unloading them. When any people from the presidio were on board, the boat was hauled up and the ballast thrown in; but when the coast was clear, she was dropped astern again, and the ballast fell overboard. This is one of those petty frauds which every vessel practises in ports of inferior foreign nations; and which are lost sight of among the countless deeds of greater weight, which are hardly less common. Fortunately, a sailor, not being a free agent in work aboard, is not accountable; yet the fact of being constantly employed, without thought, in such things, begets an indifference to the rights of others.

Friday, and a part of Saturday, we were engaged in this work until we had thrown out all but what we wanted under our cargo on our passage home; when as the next day was Sunday, and a good day for smoking ship, we cleared every thing out of the cabin and forecastle, made a slow fire of charcoal, birch bark, brimstone, and other matters, on the ballast in the bottom of the hold, calked up the hatches and every open seam, and pasted over the cracks of the windows, and the slides of the scuttles, and companion-way. Wherever smoke was seen coming out, we calked and pasted, and, so far as we could made the ship smoke tight. The captain and officers slept under the awning, which was spread over the quarter-deck; and we stowed ourselves away under an old studding-sail, which we drew over one side of the forecastle. The next day, from fear that something might happen, orders were given for no one to leave the ship: and, as the decks were lumbered up with everything, we could not wash them down, so we had nothing to do all day long. Unfortunately our books were where we could not get at them; and we were turning about for something to do, when one man recollected a book he had left in the galley. He went after it, and it proved to be Woodstock. This was a great wind-fall; and as all could not read it at once, I, being the scholar of the company, was appointed reader.

I got a knot of six or eight about me, and no one could have had a more attentive audience. Some laughed at the "scholars," and went over the other side of the forecastle to work and spin their yarns ; but I carried the day, and had the cream of the crew for my hearers. Many of the reflections, and the political parts, I omitted, but all the narrative they were delighted with; especially the descriptions of the Puritans, and the sermons and harangues of the Round-head soldiers. The gallantry of Charles,–Dr. Radcliffe's plots,-the knavery of "trusty Tomkins,"-in fact every part seemed to chain their attention. Many things which, while I was reading, I had a misgiving about, thinking them above their capacity, I was surprised to find them enter into completely.

I read nearly all day, until sundown: when, as soon as supper was over, as I had nearly finished, they got a light from the galley; and by skipping what was less interesting, I carried them through to the marriage of Everard, and the restoration of Charles the Second, before eight o'clock.

The next morning, we took the battens from the hatches, and opened the ship. A few stifled rats were found; and what bugs, cockroaches, fleas, and other vermin, there might have been on board, must have unrove their life-lines before the hatches were opened. The ship being now ready, we covered the bottom of the hold over fore-and-aft, with dried brush for dunnage, and having levelled everything away, we were ready to take in our cargo. All the hides that had been collected since the California left the coast, (a little more than two years,) amounting to about forty thousand, were cured, dried, and stowed away in the house, waiting for our good ship to take them to

Boston.

Now began the operation of taking in our cargo, which kept us hard at work, from the grey of the morning till star-light, for six weeks, with the exception of sundays, and of just time to swallow our meals. To carry the work on quicker, a division of labour was made. Two men threw the hides down from the piles in the house, two more picked them up and put them on a long horizontal pole, raised a few feet from the ground, where they were beaten by two more, with flails, somewhat like those used in threshing wheat. When beaten, they were taken from this pole by two more, and placed upon a platform of boards; and ten or a dozen men, with their trousers rolled up, were constantly going, back and forth, from the platform to the boat, which was kept off where she would just float, with the hides upon their heads. The throwing the hides upon the pole was the most difficult work, and required a sleight of hand which was only to be got by long practice. As I was known for a hide-curer, this post was assigned to me, and I continued at it for six or eight days, tossing, in that time, from eight to ten thousand hides, until my wrists became so lame that I gave in; and was transferred to the gang that was employed in filling the boats, where I remained for the rest of the time. As we were obliged to carry the hides on our heads, from fear of their getting wet, we each had a piece of sheep-skin sewed into the inside of our

hats, with the wool next to our heads, and thus were able to bear the weight, day after day, which would otherwise have soon worn off our hair, and borne hard upon our sculls. Upon the whole, ours was the best berth; for though the water was nipping cold, early in the morning and late at night, and being so continually wet, was rather an exposure, yet we got rid of the constant dust and dirt from the beating of the hides, and being all of us young and hearty, did not mind_the exposure. The older men of the crew, whom it would have been dangerous to have kept in the water, remained on board with the mate, to stow the hides away, as fast as they were brought off by the boats.

We continued at work in this manner, until the lower hold was filled to within four feet of the beams, when all hands were called aboard to commence steeving. As this is a peculiar operation, it will require a minute description.

Before stowing the hides, as I have said, the ballast is levelled off, just above the keelson, and then loose dunnage placed upon it, on which the hides rest. The greatest care is used in stowing, to make the ship hold as many hides as possible. It is no mean art, and a man skilled in it is an important character in California. Many a dispute have I heard raging high between professed "beach-combers," as to whether the hides should be stowed "shingling," or " back-to-back, and flipper to flipper;" upon which point there was an entire and bitter division of sentiment among the savans. We adopted each method at different periods of the stowing, and parties ran high in the forecastle, some siding with "old Bill" in favour of the former, and others scouting him and relying upon "English Bob" of the Ayacucho, who had been eight years in California, and was willing to risk his life and limb for the latter method. At length a compromise was effected, and a middle course of shifting the ends and backs at every lay was adopted, which worked well, and which though they held it inferior to their own, each party granted was better than that of the other.

Having filled the ship up, in this way, to within four feet of her beams, the process of steeving commenced, by which an hundred hides are got into a place where one could not be forced by hand, and which presses the hides to the utmost, sometimes starting the beams of the ship, resembling in its effects the jack-screws which are used in stowing cotton. Each morning we went ashore, and beat and brought off as many hides as we could steeve in the course of the day; and, after breakfast, went down into the hold, where we remained at work until night. The whole length of the hold, from stem to stern, was floored off level, and we began with raising a pile in the after part, hard against the bulkhead of the run, and filling it up to the beams, crowding in as many as we could by hand, and pushing in with oars; when a large "book" was made of from twenty-five to fifty hides, doubled to the backs and put into one another, like the leaves of a book. An opening was then made between two hides in the pile, and the back of the outside hide of the book inserted. Two long, heavy spars, called steeves, made of the strongest wood; and sharpened off like a wedge at one end, were placed with their wedge ends into the inside of the hide, which was the

centre of the book; and to the other end of each, straps were fitted, into which large tackles were hooked, composed each of two huge purchase-blocks, one hooked to the strap on the end of the steeve, and the other into a dog, fastened into one of the beams, as far aft as it could be got. When this was arranged, and the ways greased upon which the book was to slide, the falls of the tackles were stretched forward, and all hands tallied on, and bowsed away, until the book was well entered; when these tackles were nippered, straps and toggles clapped upon the falls, and two more luff tackles hooked on, with dogs, in the same manner; and thus by luff upon luff, the power was multiplied, until into a pile in which one hide more could not be crowded by hand, an hundred, or an hundred and fifty, were often driven in by this complication of purchases. When the last luff was hooked on, all hands were called to the rope-cook, steward, and all-and ranging ourselves at the falls, one behind the other, sitting down on the hides, with our heads just even with the beams, we set taught upon the tackles, and striking up a song, and all lying back at the chorus, we bowsed the tackles home, and drove the large book chock in out of sight.

The sailors' songs for capstans and falls are of a peculiar kind, having a chorus at the end of each line. The burden is usually sung by one alone, and at the chorus, all hands join in,-and the louder the noise the better. With us the chorus seemed almost to raise the decks of the ship, and might be heard at a great distance ashore. A song is as necessary to sailors, as the drum and fife to a soldier They can't pull in time, or pull with a will, without it. Many a time, when a thing goes heavy, with one fellow yo-ho-ing, a lively song, like Nancy oh!" "Jack Crosstree," &c., has put life and strength into every arm. We often found a great difference in the effect of the different songs in driving in the hides. Two or three songs would be tried, one after the other with no effect ;-not an inch could be got upon the tackles-when a new song struck up, seemed to hit the humour of the moment, and drove the tackles "two blocks" at once. "Heave round hearty!" "Captain gone ashore!" and the like, might do for common pulls; but on an emergency, when we wanted a heavy, "raise the dead" pull, which would start the beams of the ship, there was nothing like "Time for us to go!" "Round the corner," or "Hurrah! hurrah! my hearty bullies!"

This was the most lively part of our work. A little boating and beach work in the morning; then twenty or thirty men down in a close hold, where we were obliged to sit down and slide about, passing hides and rowsing about the great steeves, tackles, and dogs, singing out at the falls, and seeing the ship filling up every day. The work was as hard as it well could be. There was not a moment's cessation from Monday morning till Saturday night, when we were generally beaten out, and glad to have a full night's rest, a wash and shift of clothes, and a quiet Sunday. During all this time,-which would have startled Dr. Graham-we lived upon almost nothing but fresh beef: fried beefsteaks, three times a day,-morning, noon, and night. At morning and night we had a quart of tea to each man; and an allowance