r OR, VULCAN S PEAK. 13 year, which produced an entire change^in his plan of life, and nipped his academical honours in the bud. Although it is unusual for square-rigged vessels of any size to ascend the Delaware higher than Philadelphia, the river is, in truth, navigable for such craft almost to Trenton Bridge. In the year 1793, when Mark Woolston was just sixteen, a full-rigged ship actually came up, and lay at the end of the wharf in Burlington, the little town nearly op posite to Bristol, where she attracted a great deal of the attention of all the youths of the vicinity. Mark was at home, in a vacation, and he passed half his time in and about that ship, crossing the river in a skiff of which he was the owner, in order to do so. From that hour young Mark affected the sea, and all the tears of his mother and eldest sister, the latter a pretty girl only two years his ju nior, and the more sober advice of his father, could not induce him to change his mind. A six weeks vacation was passed in the discussion of this subject, when the Doctor yielded to his son s importunities, probably foreseeing he should have his hands full to educate his other children, and riot unwilling to put this child, as early as possible, in the way of supporting himself. The commerce of America, in 1793, was already flou rishing, and Philadelphia was then much the most import ant place in the country. Its East India trade, in parti cular, was very large and growing, and Dr. Woolston knew that fortunes were rapidly made by many engaged in it. After turning the thing well over in his mind, he deter mined to consult Mark s inclinations, and to make a sailor of him. He had a cousin married to the sister of an East India, or rather of a Canton ship-master, and to this person the father applied for advice and assistance. Captain Crutchely very willingly consented to receive Mark in his own vessel, the Raricocus, and promised "to make a man and an officer of him." The very day Mark first saw the ocean he was sixteen years old. He had got his height, five feet eleven, and was strong for his years, and active. In fact, it would not have been easy to find a lad every way so well adapted to his new calling, as young Mark Woolston. The three years of his college life, if they had not made him VOL. I. 2
