Yet
sometimes, in the lonely hours of my night-watch on deck, when out in
mid-ocean, would my thoughts turn to that once-loved brother, and tears
would dim my eyes as memory recalled the days of our early childhood.
"I rose in my profession till I arrived at the position of second mate.
It was at this time that, during a stay of some weeks duration in an
English port, I met with one who won my affections; and, one year after,
we were married. My wife resided with her friends in England, while I
continued to follow the sea. My wife was to me an object of almost
idolatrous attachment. Each time I visited England, I found it the
harder to bid farewell to my wife, and again embark on the ocean. We had
one child, a beautiful boy. I named him Henry, after my brother. When we
had been two years married, I made a voyage to the Indies, and was
absent nearly two years. When I returned, I learned that my wife and
child had both been for some time dead. When I learned the sad truth I
was like one bereft of reason. I could not reconcile myself to the
thought that, in this world, I could never again behold my beloved wife
and child. The very darkness of despair settled on my mind. I had not
then, as I have since done, looked heavenward for consolation amid the
sorrows of life.
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