ng_ under way, Cooper, with another boy, was
sent aloft to loose the foretopsail. With eager will he tugged stoutly
at "the robbins," when the second mate appeared just in time to prevent
him from dropping his part of the sail into the top. The good-hearted
mate had a kindly mind for the "new hand," and the men were too busy to
notice small failures aloft. Young Cooper soon found an old salt who
taught him to knot and splice with the best of them, and old Barnstable
was repaid for these lessons by the merry times they had together when
they got ashore. However, with her cargo of flour, the _Stirling_ sailed
from New York in the autumn of 1806 for the English market at Cowes, and
therefore when Cooper should have been taking his class degree at Yale,
he was outward bound on the sea's highway. Being to the manor born did
not admit the sailor before-the-mast to the captain's cabin, but no
doubt the long, rough voyage of forty stormy days did make of the young
man a jolly tar. Through her usual veil of fog came Cooper's first view
of Old England when threatened with Napoleon's invasion. Forty-odd sail
of warships were sighted by the night-watch when the _Stirling_ passed
the straits of Dover at daybreak. They gave the young man an
object-lesson that he never forgot, in the watchfulness and naval power
of Great Britain. The _Stirling_ had but dropped anchor in English
waters when she was boarded by a British man-of-war's boat-crew, and one
of her best hands was forced into the English navy service, and another
sailor barely escaped, he having satisfactory papers. At London a third
hand was lost, and Captain Johnston himself was seized by a press-gang.

[Illustration: GIBRALTAR.]

Finally, in round-jacket and tarpaulin, the future guest of Samuel
Rogers and Holland House, planted his feet on British soil. At London he
saw about everything a gay young fellow of seventeen in sailor's gear
could, of that wonderful city,--or so thought Ned Myers, one of his
shipmates, who was with him most of the time. Concerning these jaunts
Myers says: "I had one or two cruises of a Sunday in the tow of Cooper,
who soon became a branch pilot in those waters about the parks and the
West End, the Monument, St. Paul's and the lions; Cooper took a look at
the arsenal, jewels, and armory [Tower of London]. He had a rum time of
it in his sailor's rig; hoisted in a wonderful lot of gibberish." And
with his fine stories of each day's sights in old Lond