After receiving word at length that their ship had sailed from Sidney, Bradbury and his companion returned to that port and looked for work. But here they met with difficulties. Australia was then just emerging from the conditions of a convict colony, and employers were careful to hire only those who had regular passports, or recommendations of some kind. Bradbury and Charlie had, of course, no discharge, and could get none except from the American consul, but on applying to him they got no comfort. He proved to be much of a martinet and insisted upon regularity. The young men, therefore, one evening, in the privacy of their room, made out for each other, properly drawn and signed, the necessary discharge, Bradbury becoming, for the time being, Clement Adams. However, he never made use of the document, finding at length employment without it, and at the rub not wishing to take advantage of an indirection, although seeming to him justifiable.
TO BERING'S STRAITS.
Being impressed at length that it was not agreeable to be under suspicion of being an ex-convict, and finding no way of acquiring regularity, except by shipping again and getting his discharge papers, Bradbury, finding a whaler, the old Baltic, an American ship from New England, soon to sail for the Arctic, enrolled himself once more as an able seaman . The voyage for the north Pacific was soon begun, the objective point being the Petropulaski fishing grounds.
The season proved stormy, and, as is frequently the case in the high latitudes, when they reached the northern Pacific they were invested with interminable fogs. On one such period of continuous mists and high winds occurred a singular accident—nothing less than the
