When he
came to grief and Government lookedlike dropping the job, a party of
Bristol merchants took the matter up, having interests of their own
in the West Indies, and fitted out a vessel--a brig she was, as I
remember--called the _Perseverance_. Whereby this here friend o'
mine, Zekiel Philips by name, shipped aboard of her. Whereby they
made a good passage and anchored off one of the islands--Otaheety or
not, I won't say--and took aboard a cargo, being, as they supposed,
ord'nary breadfruit; and stood away east-by-south for the Horn,
meaning to work up to Kingston, Jamaica. But this particular
breadfruit was of a fattening natur', whether eaten or, as you may
say, ab-sorbed into the system through a part of it getting down to
the bilge and fermenting, and the gas of it working up through the
vessel. Whereby, the breeze holding steady and no sail to trim for
some days, the crew took it easy below, with naught to warn 'em,
unless, maybe, 'twas a tight'ning o' the buttons. Whereby on the
fifth day they ran a-foul of a cyclone; and the cry being for all
hands on deck, half a dozen stuck in the hatchway and had to be sawed
loose. Whereby, in the meantime, she carried away her mainm'st, and
the wreckage knocked a hole in her starboard quarter. Likewise, her
stern-post being rotten, she lost a pintle, and the helm began to
look fifty ways for Sunday. All o' which caused the skipper to lay
to, fix up a jury rudder and run up for the nearest island to caulk
and repair.
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