The Crisis was an unusually fast ship, faster even than the Tigris; coppered to the bends, copper-fastened, and with a live-oak frame. No better craft sailed out of the republic. Uncle Sam had tried to purchase her for one of his new navy; but the owners, having this voyage in view, refused his tempting offers. She was no sooner under her canvass, than all hands of us perceived we were in a traveller; and glad enough were we to be certain of the fact, for we had a long road before us. This, too, was with the wind free, and in smooth water; whereas those who knew the vessel asserted her _forte_ was on a bowline and in a sea-that is to say, she would sail relatively faster than most other craft, under the latter circumstances.
There was a strange pleasure to me, notwithstanding all I had suffered previously, all the risks I had run, and all I had left behind me, in finding myself once more on the broad ocean. As for Neb, the fellow was fairly enraptured. So quickly and intelligently did he obey his orders, that he won a reputation before we crossed the bar. The smell of the ocean seemed to imbue him with a species of nautical inspiration, and even I was astonished with his readiness and activity. As for myself, I was every way at home. Very different was this exit from the port, from that of the previous year. Then everything was novel, and not a little disgusting. Now I had little, almost nothing, to learn--literally nothing, I might have said, were it not that every ship-master has certain _ways_ of his own, that it behooves all his subordinates to learn as quickly as possible. Then I lived aft, where we not only had plates, and table-cloths, and tumblers, and knives and forks; but comparatively _clean_ articles of the sort. I say comparatively, the two other degrees being usually wanting in north-west traders.
The Crisis went to sea with a lively breeze at south-west, the wind shifting after she had got into the lower bay. There were a dozen sail of us altogether, and in our little fleet were two of Uncle Sam's men, who felt disposed to try their hands with us. We crossed the bar, all three of us, within a cable's length of each other, and made sail in company, with the wind a trifle abaft the beam. Just as Navesink disappeared, our two men-of-war, merchantmen altered, hauled up on bowlines, and jogged off towards the West Indies, being at the time about a league astern of us. This success put us all in high good-humour, and had such an effect on Marble in particular, that he began to give it as his opinion that our only superiority over them would not be found confined to sailing, on an experiment. It is very convenient to think favourably of one's self, and it is certainly comfortable to entertain the same notion as respects one's ship.