[7]. After that, I had finally decided
to link my future life with[8] the sea. However, I could not leave my parent’s home without their
approval[9].
One day, when my mother was in a good mood, I asked her for the help.
“Oh, mother, I’ll soon be nineteen years old, and it is too late to become a lawyer or a clerk. I have no abilities to any crafts. I see no ways to make living, but go to sea. Please, speak to my father to let me go abroad and become a mariner!”
This put my mother into a great passion[10]. She wondered how I could think this way after the discourse I had had with my father, and such a kind and tender expression that she knew my father had used on me.
“Neither I, nor your father will bless you. If you don’t obey our advice, we will not take part in your future,” she said.
But for that moment, my decision was strong enough, and adrift, my wishes turned into the real life.
Being one day at the Hull, where I went casually, I met one of my companions. He was about to sail to London on his father’s ship. He prompted me to go with him, promising that it would cost me nothing for my passage[11]. I consulted neither father nor mother about this voyage, even not so much as sent them a letter of it.
In an ill hour[12], God knows, on the 1st of September 1651, I went on board a ship bound for London.
The ship was no sooner out of the Humber than the wind began to blow and the sea to rise. I had never been at sea before, so it seemed to me, that the ship was caught in a heavy storm and will drown in a minute. The pitching[13] was so strong, that I could barely stand on my feet, the nausea stepped up to the throat[14]. I thought that those were the last minutes of my life. And only then I realized what I’ve done: all the good counsels of my parents, my father’s tears and my mother’s entreaties[15], came fresh into my mind.
I swore to myself that if I could stay alive, I’ll come back to my parents in repentance[16] and spend my entire life near them in my family home. At that moment in my mind has already appeared the picture from the biblical story “Return of the prodigal son”[17].
These wise and sober[18] thoughts continued all the while the storm lasted, and indeed some time after; but the next day the wind has abated, and the sea calmed down. However, I was very grave for all that day, being also a little sea-sick still; but towards night the weather cleared up, the wind was quite over, and a charming fine evening followed. The sun went down perfectly clear, and rose so next morning; and having little or no wind, and a smooth sea, the sun shining upon it, the sight was, as I thought, the most delightful that I ever saw.