“So far there was not a hitch. The workpeople, to be sure⁠—riggers and whatnot⁠—were most annoyingly slow, but time cured that. It was the crew that troubled me.

“I wished a round score of men⁠—in case of natives, buccaneers, or the odious French⁠—and I had the worry of the deuce itself to find so much as half a dozen, till the most remarkable stroke of fortune brought me the very man that I required.

“I was standing on the dock, when, by the merest accident, I fell in talk with him. I found he was an old sailor, kept a public house, knew all the seafaring men in Bristol, had lost his health ashore, and wanted a good berth as cook to get to sea again. He had hobbled down there that morning, he said, to get a smell of the salt.