All seamen know the weather which is most common “off the Bermudas.” We had our share of the gales so prevalent there. From this time for a week or more, we experienced all sorts of weather and winds. One day a fair wind, and the next “dead ahead,” as seamen term it, blowing a gale.
At last we took a breeze from the southwest, which increased to a heavy gale, but held on until we entered the Gulf Stream. This we knew by the temperature of the water, which is there always blood-warm. On Saturday, April 8th, we ascertained that we were to the northward of the Gulf Stream, and on soundings, the water being a bright green color.
On Monday, April 10th, all hands were ordered to “bend the cables.” It is unnecessary to say that we rejoiced greatly at this order. The chains were dragged from their resting-place in the hold in double-quick time, and every thing got ready for “letting go” the anchor on soil that had not been touched by it for nearly five years. Although not yet in sight of land, we all were anxious, excited, nervous. If the reader asks why, we reply we had been years separated from our native land, and were now returning to it.
The morning of Tuesday, April 11th, broke upon us thick, rainy, cold, and disagreeable. As the fog gradually rose, we discovered around and about us on every side a great number of vessels, probably a majority of them coasters. Bringing the old gun to the gangway, we fired it several times, in hopes it would bring us a pilot. The effort was successful. In a short time, the New Bedford pilot-boat “George Steers” ran alongside, and furnished us with an old gray-headed veteran, a regular old sea-dog, to take charge of the ship, and bring her to an anchor off New Bedford. It is useless to attempt describing the joy, the enthusiasm of all hands, now that the long-looked-for moment had come when “old Hard-a-lee” should put his foot on deck. And when he informed us that he intended to have the ship at anchor in New Bedford harbor at 10 P.M. that night, one simultaneous shout arose, and every man sprang to his post.
We never heard that the adage “There’s many a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip” failed because it is old, and we realized it during that night and the following day. Instead of being in the city of New Bedford, as we anticipated, we found ourselves, on the following morning, in the midst of as severe a gale as we had experienced during the voyage. A short time after the sun went down, the wind rose from the northeast, and we were soon stripped to the bare poles. Add to this furious storms of hail and snow pelting us continually, and one can judge of our situation. The gale continued during the whole of Wednesday and Wednesday night, furious as a hurricane, and directly in our teeth. This was tantalizing; but bear it we must, and wait for a fair wind.