It was thought prudent to have eight white men on board the ship, Mark intending to borrow as many more of Ooroony’s people, to help pull and haul.  With such a crew, he thought he might get along very well.  Wattles chose to remain with his friend Brown; but Dickinson and Harris, though ready and willing to return, wished to sail in the ship.  Like Brown, they wanted wives, but chose to select them for themselves.  On this subject Wattles said nothing.  We may add here, that Unus and Juno were united before the ship sailed.  They took up land on the Peak, where Unus erected for himself a very neat cabin.  Bridget set the young couple up, giving the furniture, a pig, some fowls, and other necessaries.

At length the day for sailing arrived.  Previously to departing, Mark had carried the ship through the channel, and she was anchored in a very good and safe roadstead, outside of everything.  The leave-taking took place on board her.  Bridget wept long in her husband’s arms, but finally got so far the command of herself, as to assume an air of encouraging firmness among the other women.  By this time, it was every way so obvious Mark’s presence would be indispensable in America, that his absence was regarded as a necessity beyond control.  Still it was hard to part for a year, nor was the last embrace entirely free from anguish.  Friend Martha Betts took leave of Friend Robert with a great appearance of calmness, though she felt the separation keenly.  A quiet, warm-hearted woman, she had made her husband very happy; and Bob was quite sensible of her worth.  But to him the sea was a home, and he regarded a voyage round the world much as a countryman would look upon a trip to market.  He saw his wife always in the vista created by his imagination, but she was at the end of the voyage.

At the appointed hour, the Rancocus sailed, Brown and Wattles going down with her in the Neshamony as far as Betto’s group, in order to bring back the latest intelligence of her proceedings.  The governor now got Ooroony to assemble his priests and chiefs, and to pronounce a taboo on all intercourse with the whites for one year.  At the end of that time, he promised to return, and to bring with him presents that should render every one glad to welcome him back.  Even Waally was included in these arrangements; and when Mark finally sailed, it was with a strong hope that in virtue of the taboo, of Ooroony’s power, and of his rival’s sagacity, he might rely on the colony’s meeting with no molestation during his absence.  The reader will see that the Peak and Reef would be in a very defenceless condition, were it not for the schooner.  By means of that vessel, under the management of Brown, assisted by Wattles, Socrates and Unus, it is true, a fleet of canoes might be beaten off; but any accident to the Abraham would be very likely to prove fatal to the colony, in the event of an invasion.  Instructions were given to Heaton to keep the schooner moving about, and particularly to make a trip as often as once in two months, to Ooroony’s country, in order to look after the state of things there.  The pretence was to be trade—­beads, hatchets, and old iron being taken each time, in exchange for sandal-wood; but the principal object was to keep an eye on the movements, and to get an insight into the policy, of the savages.