In Ship and Prison by William P. Chipman — Read

I cannot remember the time when I did not love the sea, nor is that strange. I was born in sight of the ocean. My father, and, as for that matter, his father before him, was a sailor. My first recollections are of boats and oars, of vessels and ropes and sails. At fourteen I had made a trip to the Great Banks on a fishing smack and at sixteen my knowledge of the Atlantic coast reached from Newfoundland to Charleston. Tall for my age, strong and hardy from constant toil and exposure, and familiar with all sorts of sailing craft from a shallop to a ship, I counted myself an able-bodied seaman. I now had one ambition -- to voyage to foreign ports.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, the single cable which bound me to the homeland was severed. My mother -- the only parent I can remember, for my father was lost at sea while I was still a babe -- died. I left her in usual health for a voyage to Norfolk. On my return I found her dead and buried. In caring for a neighbor, who was sick with typhus fever, she fell a victim to the disease. A small cottage with its scanty furniture, a few dollars in the care of Squire Sabins, the village lawyer, and her dying message -- these were my legacy. It was the message which changed the course of my life, and sent me away from my native town for years. It read: