88 SKETCHES OF A VOYAGE 



the morning at worship under the plea that you did not get awake, when 

 the real state of the case is, that your indolence mastered your sense 

 of duty. It is disorderly, to be tardy in your appearance at college ex- 

 ercises, and then to pretend that you were deceived in the time; and fi- 

 nally it is so — when the indulgence of the government of the institution 

 is exhausted, and incorrigible oflenders are subjected to discipline — for 

 you to throw your sympathy entirely upon them, and to seek to dimin- 

 ish the majesty of law, by disrespect to its penalty when it is inflicted. 

 Such is a hasty expose of the matriculation oath. You have volunta- 

 rily, with no constraint from the College, assumed it; in the fulfillment, 

 great reliance is placed upon your honor; in no case are you treated 

 with suspicion, till you have shown that you are not deserving of con- 

 fidence; if at any time you should regard your situation as oppressive, 

 you are at liberty to withdraw. In view of all this, is it not most rea- 

 sonable that you should be expected conscientiously and fully to show 

 in your conduct that you have not merely passed through a formality 

 of no obligatory power in the assumption of this vow, but that it is re- 

 ally lodged in your heart and is controlling your moral sensibilities with 

 energetic force I 



Having reached this point, I propose to launch out into various to- 

 pics such as I consider calculated to subserve your best interests, to 

 furnish you some guide in the interesting career upon which you have 

 entered, and to aid you in the formation of such a character as will 

 make you useful, beloved ornaments to your kind — happy in your life, 

 not forsaken in your death, remembered on earth, immortalized in 



heaven. 



Your's, faithfully. 



SKETCHES OF A VOYAGE, AND RESIDENCE IN THE SOUTH 

 SEA ISLANDS. NO. I. 



On the 12ih day of December, 1834, I set sail, in the good Brig 

 " May Daae " of Boston, from the mouth of the Columbia River, 

 bound for the Sandvvich Islands. We crossed the dangerous bar at the 

 mouth of the river in safety, though for the space of about twenty min- 

 utes, the sea roared and boiled around our frail bark like an enormous 

 cauldron ; and the billows, upheaved from the very bottom, at each in- 

 stant threatened to engulph us in their briny depths. 



At this spot several vessels belonging to the Hudson's Bay Company 

 have been lost, and it was here that our noble Peacock, when attached 

 to the United States Exploring Expedition foundered, carrying with her 



