DIARY OF CAPTAIN LAMSON 153 



wards President of Bowdoin College. I did 

 invariably as well in my studies as boys in 

 general at that age. My father, not having 

 a wish to send me to sea, and hoping I 

 would select some other mode of business 

 on shore, his best efforts were to take me to 

 Boston to Samuel Parkman, then a large 

 importing merchant, where I had the offer 

 of staying with him ; but my mind being of 

 the speculative and uneasy make I could 

 not content myself. Accordingly, I advised 

 my father that the seafaring life was my 

 constant wish to follow. He, like a prudent 

 man, would not rashly forbid it, consent- 

 ing that I should go. Accordingly, Novem- 

 ber, 1797, 1 embarked onboard the Essex, 1 

 Benjamin Henderson, Master, belonging 



Many of the coast towns had schools especially devoted 

 to instruction in navigation. One in Manchester, Mass., 

 kept by Stilson Hilton, is said to have numbered forty 

 masters of vessels among its graduates. LAMSON, His- 

 tory of Manchester, p. 107. 



There was also a similar school in Salem, Mass. 



1 Brigantine " Essex," 197 tons, built in 1789, altered 

 to a bark in 1794, William Orne, owner. 



