He was able to obtain a berth in the Honourable Company’s “Maritime Service” (as it was called, in contradistinction to the Company’s Marine) owing to the influence of a Mr Edmund Antrobus, a teaman and banker in the Strand. The latter took the sixteen-year-old youth and introduced him to a Mr Matthew White, who was the managing owner of the ship _Marquis of Wellesley_, by whom the midshipman’s appointment had been granted. She was a vessel of 818 charter tons and was now about to start on her second voyage to India, her commander being Captain Bruce Mitchell. Mr White gave Addison a letter of introduction to the chief officer, named Le Blanc, and after the boy had completed his sea-going kit he was taken down to the ship at Gravesend by Mr Antrobus. Addison was now handed over to his future messmates, and then began his initiation. As so many of these old-time ceremonies have long since passed away, it may not be out of place to say Addison was sent up into the mizen top, outside the futtocks, where according to custom he should have been seized up to the rigging by a couple of seamen, had he not received the tip to promise them beforehand a gallon of beer. “In lieu of which, by the by, five gallons was afterwards demanded of me by my messmates, stating that the mizen top was their sole prerogative. This is a very old usage practised on board all ships, considered a fair claim from all strangers on first going aloft.”
In addition to the captain, there were the chief officer, three mates and a large crew. In all there were thirty officers and petty officers, the whole complement amounting to 151, which nowadays would be thought enormous for a ship of her size. The men received two months’ wages in advance before sailing, and in February 1802 made sail down the Thames from Gravesend under the charge of one of the Company’s pilots, who brought her safely into the Downs, where the wind was blowing hard from the south-west, sending in a high sea. Addison was destined at once to have excitement, for about sundown, whilst his Majesty’s frigate _Egyptienne_ was coming to anchor in the Downs, she had shortened sail and left herself too little way to shoot ahead of the Indiaman, with the result that she fell broadside on to the _Marquis Wellesley’s_ bows, tearing away the latter’s cutwater and bowsprit, bringing down the foretopmast also, making in fact a clean sweep of the ship forward. The merchantman was lying to a single anchor at the time, but although it blew most of a gale during the night the ship rode it out all right, and next morning, the weather having moderated, the frigate’s commander sent some hands on board to give the ship a temporary refit. After this the Indiaman proceeded to Portsmouth, where she was fully repaired alongside a man-of-war hulk. On the 4th of March she went out of harbour and anchored at Spithead, where she took on board a number of his Majesty’s dragoons, as well as forty-nine of the East India Company’s troops and their wives for India. The next day, having received the Company’s packet from the India House and the despatches for Bengal and Madras, she weighed anchor in the afternoon and proceeded down Channel.