with ropes tied round their waists, the other end of which was held by those on shore, plunged in to our assistance.  One of our unfortunate company was drowned,—­the rest of us came safely to the shore; but we lost everything except the clothes we stood in.  The fragments saved from the wreck were sold at auction for two hundred dollars.  The people of that neighborhood treated us with great kindness, and we presently took the packet for Elizabeth city, whence I proceeded to Norfolk, Baltimore, and so home.

I had made up my mind to go to sea no more; but, after remaining on shore for three weeks, and not finding anything else to do, as it was necessary for me to have the means of supporting my increasing family, I took the command of another vessel, belonging to the same owners, the sloop Joseph B. While in this vessel, my voyages were to the eastward.  I was engaged in the flour-trade, in conjunction with the owners of the vessel.  We bought flour and grain on a sixty days’ credit, which I carried to the Kennebec, Portsmouth, Boston, New Bedford, and other eastern ports, calculating upon the returns of the voyage to take up our notes.  I was so successful in this business as finally to become the owner of the Joseph B., which vessel I exchanged away at Portsmouth for the Sophronia, a top-sail schooner of one hundred and sixty tons, worth about fourteen hundred dollars.  In this vessel I made two trips to Boston,—­one with coal, and the other with timber.  Having unloaded my timber, I took in a hundred tons of plaster, purchased on my own account, intending to dispose of it in the Susquehanna.  But on the passage I encountered a heavy storm, which blew the masts out of the vessel, and drove her ashore on the south side of Long Island.  We saved our lives; but I lost everything except one hundred and sixty dollars, for which I sold what was left of the vessel and cargo.

Having returned to my family, with but little disposition to try my fortune again in the coasting-trade, one day, being in the horse-market, I purchased a horse and wagon; and, taking in my wife and some of the younger children, I went to pay a visit to the neighborhood in which I was born.  Here I traded for half of a bay-craft, of about sixty tons burden, in which I engaged in the oyster-trade, and other small bay-traffic.  Having met at Baltimore the owner of the other half, I bought him out also.  The whole craft stood me in about seven hundred dollars.  I then purchased three hundred bushels of potatoes, with which I sailed for Fredericksburg, in Virginia; but this proved a losing trip, the potatoes not selling for what they cost me.  At Fredericksburg I took in flour on freight for Norfolk; but my ill-luck still pursued me.  In unloading the vessel, the cargo forward being first taken out, she settled by the stern and sprang a leak, damaging fifteen barrels of flour, which were thrown upon my hands.  I then sailed for the eastern shore of Virginia, and at a place