A Voyage to the Moon | Page 4

city of New-York, a theatre better suited to his enlarged
capital. He here engaged in foreign trade; and, partaking of the prosperity which then
attended American commerce, he gradually extended his business, and finally embarked
in our new branch of traffic to the East Indies and China. He was now very generally
respected, both for his wealth and fair dealing; was several years a director in one of the
insurance offices; was president of the society for relieving the widows and orphans of
distressed seamen; and, it is said, might have been chosen alderman, if he had not refused,
on the ground that he did not think himself qualified.
My father was not one of those who set little value on book learning, from their own
consciousness of not possessing it: on the contrary, he would often remark, that as he felt
the want of a liberal education himself, he was determined to bestow one on me. I was
accordingly, at an early age, put to a grammar school of good repute in my native village,
the master of which, I believe, is now a member of Congress; and, at the age of seventeen,
was sent to Princeton, to prepare myself for some profession. During my third year at that
place, in one of my excursions to Philadelphia, and for which I was always inventing
pretexts, I became acquainted with one of those faces and forms which, in a youth of
twenty, to see, admire, and love, is one and the same thing. My attentions were
favourably received. I soon became desperately in love; and, in spite of the advice of my
father and entreaties of my mother, who had formed other schemes for me nearer home, I
was married on the anniversary of my twenty-first year.
It was not until the first trance of bliss was over, that I began to think seriously on the
course of life I was to pursue. From the time that my mind had run on love and
matrimony, I had lost all relish for serious study; and long before that time, I had felt a
sentiment bordering on contempt for the pursuits of my father. Besides, he had already
taken my two younger brothers into the counting-house with him. I therefore prevailed on
my indulgent parent, with the aid of my mother's intercession, to purchase for me a neat
country-seat near Huntingdon, which presented a beautiful view of the Sound, and where,
surrounded by the scenes of my childhood, I promised myself to realise, with my Susanna,
that life of tranquil felicity which fancy, warmed by love, so vividly depicts.
If we did not meet with all that we had expected, it was because we had expected too

much. The happiest life, like the purest atmosphere, has its clouds as well as its sunshine;
and what is worse, we never fully know the value of the one, until we have felt the
inconvenience of the other. In the cultivation of my farm--in educating our children, a son
and two daughters, in reading, music, painting--and in occasional visits to our friends in
New-York and Philadelphia, seventeen years glided swiftly and imperceptibly away; at
the end of which time death, in depriving me of an excellent wife, made a wreck of my
hopes and enjoyments. For the purpose of seeking that relief to my feelings which change
of place only could afford, I determined to make a sea voyage; and, as one of my father's
vessels was about to sail for Canton, I accordingly embarked on board the well-known
ship the Two Brothers, captain Thomas, and left Sandy-hook on the 5th day of June, 1822,
having first placed my three children under the care of my brother William.
I will not detain the reader with a detail of the first incidents of our voyage, though they
were sufficiently interesting at the time they occurred, and were not wanting in the usual
variety. We had, in singular succession, dead calms and fresh breezes, stiff gales and
sudden squalls; saw sharks, flying-fish, and dolphins; spoke several vessels: had a visit
from Neptune when we crossed the Line, and were compelled to propitiate his favour
with some gallons of spirits, which he seems always to find a very agreeable change from
sea water; and touched at Table Bay and at Madagascar.
On the whole, our voyage was comparatively pleasant and prosperous, until the 24th of
October; when, off the mouths of the Ganges, after a fine clear autumnal day, just about
sunset, a small dark speck was seen in the eastern horizon by our experienced and
watchful captain, who, after noticing it for a few moments, pronounced that we should
have a hurricane. The rapidity with which this speck grew into a dense cloud, and spread
itself in darkness