my wife was dead; that she died the day after
I was pressed; that through the fright she
got she was taken in labour, and she died in
childbed, but that the child lived, and was
grown a fine boy, and that he would be five
years old if he lived till July; and he told
me that he had never received only one letter
from me, and that was the one I had sent
from the "Albion," before I sailed in her;
and Mr. Bland told me that he and his wife
had taken care of everything; that after my
wife was buried, and they got a nurse for the
child, they sold everything that I had in the
house; and knowing that I had money in Mr.
Scovel's hands, he went to him and told him
all about it; and Mr. Scovel had allowed him
seven shillings a-week for to take care of the
child and pay the nurse; and he showed me
the account of the expenses he had been at,
and I found that it amounted to nearly ninety-
five pounds; so Mr. Scovel was still a debtor
to me. And after we had settled all our
accounts, I gave Mr. Bland thirty doubloons and
about one hundred and twenty Spanish dollars,
and told him to take them to Mr. Scovel,
to put to the rest of my stock; and I told him
to be careful of my boy, and whatever he
wanted, to get money from Mr. Scovel and
get it for him; and I gave him two doubloons
—one for himself and the other for his wife;
and I returned him my kind thanks for the
trouble he had been at on my account. And
after Mr. Bland was gone, I sat down and had
a good cry for the loss of my wife; and I
returned my sincere thanks to God for his
great mercy to me for raising up friends to
look after my child. And now this business
being settled, I went on deck to my work,
and the next day we sailed for to join a
convoy in Yarmouth Roads, and from there
we went to Gottenburg, where we arrived
in May.

Nothing particular happened to me whilst
in the "Spitfire" sloop of war, not till the 1st
of August, 1810, when an accident happened
to me. We were cruising off the coast of Norway,
and the weather being rather thick and
hazy, for it had been blowing strong all night;
and in the morning, sending our top-gallant-
yards up, a strange sail was reported from the
mast-head on the lee-beam; and the hands
being turned up to make sail, and I being at
the mast-head, binding the top-gallant-yard;
but not getting our jewelblocks on the yard
before we were ordered to loose the sail, and
was obliged to put them on after the sail was
set; and I being out on the starboard foretop
gallant-yard-arm, and the slack of the lifts
not being taken down, the top-gallant halyards
carried away, and the slack of the lift
caught me under my rump, and hove me
right over the yard; but, as luck would have
it, I caught right across the top-gallant bowline,
and it being slack, I lowered myself
down till I got hold of the leech of the
topsail just before the ship was luffed to
the wind. I mention this to show the
wonderful mercy and care of God Almighty
over us poor mortals; for if I had fell
down on deck, I must have been killed
upon the spot; but I got safe down on deck
without any hurt, and I got the name of
the "Flying Dutchman" amongst my shipmates.

During our cruise off the coast of Norway
we took several prizes, and our time
passed away merrily enough till the year
1812, when the American war broke out;
and the "President" American frigate,
Commodore Rogers, was off the North Cape,
when our ship, the "Spitfire" sloop of war,
the "Alexander," thirty-two gun frigate,
and the "Bonne Citoyenne" corvette, were
sent off the North Cape to protect our trade,
and to see if we could see anything of him.
We arrived off the Cape in the latter part
of May, and we found it very cold there;
and we kept cruising there till the 10th of
June, when, about four o'clock in the afternoon,
the weather clearing up, we saw the
American frigate, and a large schooner along
with her: she was about five or six miles
dead to leeward of us, and we made all sail in
chase. Now, our ship would out-sail the
other two ships; but our commander would not
allow us to go alongside of her, for she was too
heavy a ship for us to engage; so we chased
her till the 14th of June, when both she and
us got stuck amongst the ice; we had chased
her as far as eighty-three degrees of north
latitude. Now at this time of the year, in
this part of the world, there is scarcely any
night, but all daylight. We stuck fast among
the ice till the 17th day of June, when the ice
broke up; but the "President" getting clear
of it before we did, he made the best of his
way to the southward; and before we got
clear we could see nothing of him nor any
other ship; for the corvette had been sent
after the schooner, and the "Alexander"
frigate had been drifted off the ice by strong
currents, and we did not fall in with the
"Alexander" till the 21st of June, and then
we kept cruising off the North Cape again.
Now the "President" frigate had taken a
great many of our Archangel traders, and a
good many Russian vessels, before we came
on the coast, and taken them into a place
called Colla, which is a large bay, with very
good anchorage and a very good harbour.
And when she got them in there, they took
the best what they wanted out of the ships,
and then set fire to them; and they took one
of our Greenland ships belonging to Hull, and
had put all the English prisoners on board of
her, and the Russians they had set ashore at
Colla, a small town about twenty miles up the
river; so the Russians were very much
embittered against the Americans. I mention
this, because it interferes with my story. We
and the frigate kept cruising about the
North Cape till the latter part of July;
and our water getting very short, we put
into Colla, for to water and to get some