Leaving these turtles to bill and coo over a cup of tea, and to the enjoyment of a lover's walk along the lovely banks of the Severn, we will proceed to enlighten the reader as to who and what they are, and to discuss sundry other equally important topics.
As the good ship Bristol Trader was lazily rolling along in a southerly direction, with a light breeze and fine weather, and in the latitude of about thirty-nine or forty north, she fell in with the wreck of a schooner, of about eighty or ninety tons burthen, dismasted and apparently half full of water, in which most unpleasant situation she did not appear long to have been. The Bristol Trader hove to, and sent her boat alongside, in hopes of obtaining something valuable from the wreck, either cargo, or provisions, or rigging--if a wreck yields nothing else, there is always plenty of fish around it. As the boat approached, the attention of the crew was attracted by the appearance of some person on board, who made the most animated and intelligible signs to them to come alongside. The boat's crew redoubled their exertions, and, upon coming on board, found a boy of about fourteen years, the only living human being. The poor little fellow seemed almost exhausted with fatigue and hunger; but being carried on board the ship and refreshed, he informed his deliverers that his name was George Allerton--that the schooner belonged to a port in New England, and was homeward bound from Fayal with a quantity of wine and fruit--that she had been capsized, in a sudden and violent squall, three days previous, when all the crew but himself and one other were swept overboard--that she had righted after cutting away the masts, but with a great deal of water in the hold, and that the other man had accidentally fallen overboard, and was drowned.
It happened that the owner of the ship, Mr. Effingham, was on board. He was going to Rio de Janeiro, partly on account of his health, but chiefly to look after and secure a large amount of property belonging to the firm of which he was senior partner, and which was jeopardised by certain disturbances in Brazil. Like all passengers on board a ship, he could find but little or nothing to do to pass away the time, and being a married man and a father, his sympathies and good feelings were powerfully excited and strongly attracted towards this "waif of the sea," their new passenger. The boy, on the other hand, to a very handsome face added a mild and amiable disposition, and, like all New-England boys, an education vastly superior to boys of the same age and standing in Great Britain. George's parents were respectable in some sort--that is to say, their moral and religious characters were beyond reproach, but their social reputation was very bad indeed--they were poor. It has been said by an English traveller, that in all other countries pleasure, rank, literary renown, &c. are the objects upon which men place their affections; but, in the United States, the pursuit of wealth is an imperious duty; and, of course, if a man fails in this duty, his good name as a member of society soon becomes most deplorably out at elbows.