I returned to the office and handed the wallet and money to Mr. Nazro. Again he was astonished. He asked if I had collected all the bills, and when I told him nearly all, he asked me for the list. I said I had made out none, as it was not necessary. There was all the money; he could count it, and compare with the list on his books. He was very much surprised, but counted the money, and found it correct to a cent. I did not need a list, I told him, because I could carry the whole thing in my head.
From that day to this I have done everything I have undertaken in my own way, and have found that it was the best way--at least, for me.
My next duty was to see that every one of the 150 consignees received the goods that were billed to him. This gave me opportunity for meeting a large number of important persons. Among the rest, I met Nathaniel P. Banks, who was a Custom-House official at the time, and the great writer, Nathaniel Hawthorne, whom I saw in the Custom-House on a visit from Salem. He had been appointed by President Polk. Of course I knew nothing about him at the time, although he was then writing his greatest work, and perhaps was casting in his mind The Scarlet Letter. He had only just begun to be famous--an interesting fact enough, but one I did not learn till long afterward. He seemed very unassuming, and not in very affluent circumstances. I suppose his salary from the Government at the time was not more than $1,000 a year.
My life in the old shipping house of Train & Co., in Boston, lasted some four years. The first vessel that came in, after I began working with the company, was the Joshua Bates, named after the American partner of the famous house of the Barings. It was of 400 tons, quite a big ship for the time. The next was the Washington Irving, 500 tons; and the third was the Anglo-Saxon, the bills of which, on a previous voyage, I had made out in my trial under Mr. Nazro. The Anglo-Saxon was lost the following year--this was in '46--off Cape Sable, with several passengers, the captain and crew escaping. After this the Anglo-American came in, then the Parliament, the Ocean Monarch, and the Staffordshire. All of these were famous ships in their day.