“He says, ‘my name is Tom Wilson, and I was born in Bristol, England, and lived there till I was sixteen, and then sailed for Boston, and followed the seas twenty years, and at last was pressed aboard an English man of war in London. I escaped, and got on board a French ship, and started for America in a merchantman. We’d made ’bout half v’yge when a tremendous storm riz, and we was stove all to pieces, and every body and every thing went down, for all I know, and I took to a big cork buoy as my only hope. The last I see of the wreck was two days arter this. Well, I hung to my buoy, and floated on, and on, and it got, calm, and it got to be the fifth day, and I thought I must give up. I lost all sense enemost, and didn’t know what did happen, till I beard your boat come up, and then my heart fluttered; and now is the first time for days I know what I am about. And this is the second time I have been cast away and not a man aboard saved but myself. How long I was aboard the buoy arter I lost my sense, I can’t say, but it seems to me it was _some_ days, but I an’t sartin. Now captain, if I get well, make me one of your men.’
“Well, he got up fast, and eat up ‘most all creation, he was so nigh starved; and when he got able to work ship-tackle, he turns out to be a great sailor, but an awful wicked man, for every breath heaved out an oath.
“Well, in twenty-one days from the West-Indies, we made the New York Light, and then there was rejoicin’ enough I tell ye. I know I was glad enough, and as soon as we got hauled up, I jumped ashore and the first thing says I,
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Peter spends the winter of 1806–7 in New York; sails in June in the Carnapkin for Bristol; a sea tempest; ship becalmed off the coast of England; catch a shark and find a lady’s hand, and gold ring and locket in him; this locket, &c. lead to a trial, and the murderer hung; the mother of the lady visits the ship; sail for home; Peter sails with captain Williams on a trading voyage; Gibralter; description of it; sail to Bristol; chased by a privateer; she captured by a French frigate; sail for New York; Peter lives a gentleman at large in “the big city of New York.”