there to get some wood, and to try if they
could find any water, and that, on landing,
they had seen the dog; and being surprised
at seeing a dog upon the island, which they
knew was uninhabited, the second mate and
one man had followed the dog till they found
me; and I told them as well as I was able
how I came on the island, and how long I had
been there. The second mate, who was talking
to me, told me that he would go on board
of the schooner directly, and acquaint the
captain of the schooner of my condition; but
I begged of him to allow his shipmate to stop
along with me whilst he was gone, to which
he agreed, and away he went; but my feelings
during the time he was gone I can't express,
for hope and fear were mixed together. I
asked the man that was left along with me,
to make my fire up, and fry some tortoise, for
the dog had dragged a large one close to my
hut, and my new companion soon killed him,
and cooked the best part of it, and before it
was quite done, the captain of the schooner
came up to my hut, and he brought four men
along with him to carry me down to the boat,
and he brought some rum and some water,
and some biscuit along with them, for me to
have something to eat and to drink before
they took me away; and the captain and
the men had some of my tortoise that their
shipmate had cooked, and they liked it very
well. But the first morsel of bread that I
tasted I could scarcely get down, for it was
now two hundred and seventy days since I had
tasted a bit of bread; and still the Lord had
been kind enough to preserve me, and send
me help when I was in the greatest distress,
and could not help myself; and how wonderful
that the dog should be the means of my
deliverance! It was a long time before I
came to again, when I got on board the
schooner; and the people on board told me
afterwards that they could not keep the dog
from me during the time that I was lying
senseless; and as soon as he saw that I moved
and spoke again, he ran fore and aft the
decks like as if he was mad.

When I came on board of the "Flying
Fish," it was the 29th day of October, 1820,
and I was cast away on the 3d day of
February, which made exactly two hundred
and seventy days that I had been on James's
Island. Now the schooner lay there eight
or ten days after I had been on board, to get
wood and tortoises on board; and then we
sailed from the island, and the schooner being
bound to Baltimore, in America, we went to
windward.

In the beginning of January, 1821, but a
few days after we got round Cape Horn, and
being off the Falkland Islands, a sad misfortune
befell me: I lost my dog, who died
through eating some porpoise liver. Some of
the crew of the schooner had caught a
porpoise, and the dog, being used so long to live
upon raw meat, eat too greedily of the liver,
and he died on the fifteenth day of January,
and you may depend that I was very sorry
for it; but he was gone, and all the fretting
about him would do no good; so we kept on
our course, and, thanks be to God, we had very
fine weather, and we arrived in Baltimore on
the 2d of March, 1821. Now, the captain
and the crew had given me a good many
clothes on the passage, for what I had on the
island were all worn out, and my legs, thanks
be to God, were a good deal better; and the
captain of the schooner took me up to the
owners, and told them what state he had
found me in; and the owners were kind
enough to send me to a boarding-house,
where I was to stay till I got well, and
they made me a present of twenty dollars;
for which, and all the other kindnesses which
I had received from them, I thanked them
kindly.

I stayed in Baltimore till the 20th day of
April, when I found myself quite well, and
shipped on board of a brig called the " Buck,"
of Boston, and she was bound to New Orleans,
where we arrived on the 16th day of May. I
forgot to mention that before I left Baltimore
I sent a letter to Mr. Mellish, in an English
ship bound to Liverpool, to acquaint him with
the loss of the " Spring Grove," and I
acquainted him that the ship had one thousand
three hundred barrels of oil in her when she was
lost, and every other particular about her; and
I told him that I intended to come to London
myself as soon as I had an opportunity. Now
when we arrived at New Orleans, our brig
was found unfit for sea, for she was very leaky,
and we the crew were discharged from her;
and I being in a strange place, and having
very little money, I was obliged to look out
for another ship as soon as I could; and I
shipped myself in a steamboat called the
"Olive Branch," to go from New Orleans up
the Mississippi to the Falls of Ohio; and I
got twenty-five dollars per month. I went
up in the " Olive Branch " as far as a
place called Shipping Point, close to the Falls
of the Ohio; but it now being the latter
part of June, and the river being very low,
our steamer was laid up, and I was paid off.
I got back to New Orleans on the 10th of
December, but I had the misfortune to hurt
my leg on the passage down; and, when we
got to New Orleans, and our cargo discharged,
I found my leg so bad that I was obliged to
take my discharge from the " La Fayette,"
and go on shore under the doctor's hands;
and I was obliged to go to a boarding-house;
but, thanks be to God, I had saved up a little
money. Now the house that I was recommended
to was kept by a widow woman, and
she seemed to be a very industrious woman,
but she was obliged to keep a bar-keeper or a
man to look after the business. Now, after I
had been in the house for about two months,
she asked me, one day, if I could read and
write; I told her yes. She asked me if I
would be kind enough to have a look at her
books, for she was pretty well sure that the