“Rival merchants sometimes drove the work of preparation night and day, when virgin markets had favors to be won, and ships which set out for unknown ports were watched when they slipped their cables and sailed away by night, and dogged for months on the high seas, in the hopes of discovering a secret, well kept by the owner and crew.  Every man on board was allowed a certain space for his own little venture.  People in other pursuits, not excepting the owner’s minister, entrusted their savings to the supercargo, and watched eagerly the result of their adventure.  This great mental activity, the profuse stores of knowledge brought by every ship’s crew, and distributed, together with India shawls, blue china, and unheard-of curiosities from every savage shore, gave the community a rare alertness of intellect.”

The spirit in which young fellows, scarcely attained to years of maturity, met and overcame the dangers of the deep is vividly depicted in Captain George Coggeshall’s narrative of his first face-to-face encounter with death.  He was in the schooner “Industry,” off the Island of Teneriffe, during a heavy gale.

“Captain K. told me I had better go below, and that he would keep an outlook and take a little tea biscuit on deck.  I had entered the cabin, when I felt a terrible shock.  I ran to the companion-way, when I saw a ship athwart our bows.  At that moment our foremast went by the board, carrying with it our main topmast.  In an instant the two vessels separated, and we were left a perfect wreck.  The ship showed a light for a few moments and then disappeared, leaving us to our fate.  When we came to examine our situation, we found our bowsprit gone close to the knight-heads.”  An investigation showed that the collision had left the “Industry” in a grievous state, while the gale, ever increasing, blew directly on shore.  But the sailors fought sturdily for life.  “To retard the schooner’s drift, we kept the wreck of the foremast, bowsprit, sails, spars, etc., fast by the bowsprit shrouds and other ropes, so that we drifted to leeward but about two miles the hour.  To secure the mainmast was now the first object.  I therefore took with me one of the best of the crew, and carried the end of a rope cable with us up to the mainmast head, and clenched it round the mast, while it was badly springing.  We then took the cable to the windlass and hove taut, and thus effectually secured the mast....  We were then drifting directly on shore, where the cliffs were rocky, abrupt, and almost perpendicular, and were perhaps almost 1,000 feet high.  At each blast of lightning we could see the surf break, whilst we heard the awful roar of the sea dashing and breaking against the rocks and caverns of this iron-bound island.

[Illustration:  A “PINK”]

“When I went below I found the captain in the act of going to bed; and as near as I can recollect, the following dialogue took place: