So eager was I to belong to some sea-going craft, that I would not
stop even to look at the wonders of the town, before we took the
direction of the wharves. Rupert was for pursuing a different policy,
having an inherent love of the genteeler gaieties of a town, but I
turned a deaf ear to his hints, and this time I was master. He
followed me with some reluctance, but follow he did, after some
remonstrances that bordered on warmth. Any inexperienced eye that had
seen us passing, would have mistaken us for two well-looking, smart
young sailor-boys, who had just returned from a profitable voyage, and
who, well-clad, tidy and semi-genteel, were strolling along the
wharves as _admirateurs_, not to say critics, of the craft.
_Admirateurs_ we were, certainly, or _I_ was, at least;
though knowledge was a point on which we Were sadly deficient.
The trade of America was surprisingly active in 1797. It had been
preyed upon by the two great belligerents of the period, England and
France, it is true; and certain proceedings of the latter nation were
about to bring the relations of the two countries into a very
embarrassed state; but still the shipping interest was wonderfully
active, and, as a whole, singularly successful. Almost every tide
brought in or took out ships for foreign ports, and scarce a week
passed that vessels did not arrive from, or sail for, all the
different quarters of the world.
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