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C h a p t e r 8 The Deep: Crossing the Sea While we were out, the wind rising high, the waves several times beat over us, that to me it appeared dangerous, but my mind was at that time turned to him who made and governs the deep, and my life was resigned to him. —John Woolman, Journal, chapter 7 Woolman’s view of travel across the ocean darkened over the course of his life. With his boyhood home near the Delaware River and the port of Burlington only a few miles away, he grew up familiar with long-distance sailing ships. His first experience on the open seas came when he traveled to New England at age twenty-six. He recounted that trip in his journal with a precision that reflected an element of excitement. He took sailing vessels from Long Island to Connecticut, from Rhode Island to Nantucket and back, and then from New London to Long Island. He calculated that in total he sailed 150 miles.1 His account of those voyages contains no hint of apprehension or regret. He was more disturbed, and had more to say, after his second passage to New England in 1760. The difference reflects the expansion of his concerns and the redirection of his attention since 1747, as well as the specific incidents during the trip. In late April 1760, on his way to New London, Woolman survived a rough passage across Long Island Sound in a “large open boat.” The wind tossed the vessel, on occasion (it seemed to Woolman) nearly swamping it. “The waves several times beat over us,” he wrote. “To me it appeared dangerous .” Although frightened, he “turned to him who made and governs the deep” and resigned himself. “I had fresh occasion to consider every day as a 176 Chapter 8 day lent to me and felt a renewed engagement to devote my time, and all I had, to him who gave it.”2 His response to the storm was influenced by Quaker tradition.3 The Quakers’ way of talking and writing about the sea was informed by their reading of the Bible, which, beginning with the first chapter of Genesis and continuing through the story of the flood, the destruction of the Pharaoh’s army, Job’s description of Leviathan, Jonah’s ordeals, the ministry of Jesus on the Sea of Galilee, and the adventures of Paul, repeatedly depicted the open water as a place of incomprehensible power, beyond the capacity of humans to master or control. Furthermore, Quaker ministers knew from experience that sailing could be dangerous, and they insisted that no one should tempt Providence by setting sail at cross-purposes with God. Praying aloud on the decks of ships, traveling ministers proclaimed this principle to everyone within earshot.4 Later on that same trip in 1760, Woolman made a slow sail from Rhode Island to Nantucket. The ship captain was hesitant about embarking, and he told his passengers that they would leave only “if the wind be fair and way open to sail.”5 Nonetheless they went and, sailing into slack wind, they barely got away from the mainland. They camped for the night on Naushon Island, on the opposite side of Buzzards Bay. Unable to find adequate lodging on the island, a few of the travelers took beds in a public house, and the rest slept on the floor. Returning to their ship early the next morning, they sailed for Nantucket and nearly got there, but had to row into the harbor in two small boats at the end of the day.6 During his five days on Nantucket, Woolman was repeatedly reminded of how unpredictable the weather was, and how risky it could be for the islanders to embark in ships: “I observed many shoals in their bay, which makes sailing more dangerous, especially in stormy nights. I observed also a great shoal which encloses their harbor and prevents their going in with sloops except when the tide is up. Waiting without this shoal for the rising of the tide is sometimes hazardous in storms, and waiting within they sometimes miss a fair wind.” When he left the island, Woolman was part of a group of approximately fifty who boarded a ship and then disembarked; the voyage was canceled because of changeable winds. He managed to sail away the next day, on his second attempt.7 After he returned to his home to Mount Holly, Woolman continued to...

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