Contents ▼▲
Front Matter A Proper Beginning On the Broad Ocean Making Ready for Battle The Rest of the Voyage First View of America The Town of Salem Other Villages Visiting Salem Making Comparisons An Indian Guest A Christening and a Dinner Deciding upon a Home A Sad Loss Rejoicing to Mourning Thanksgiving Day in July Leaving for Charlestown Our Neighbors Getting Settled The Great Sickness Moving the Town Master Prohibits Swimming Anna Foster's Party The Town of Boston Guarding Against Fires Our Own New Home The Fashion of the Day My Own Wardrobe Master Johnson's Death Many New Kinds of Food The Supply of Food The Sailing of the Lyon The Famine The Search for Food The Starvation Time A Day to be Remembered The Coming of the Lyon Another Thanksgiving Day A Defense for the Town A Problem of Servants Chickatabut Building a Ship Household Conveniences How the Work is Divided Launching the Ship Master Winthrop's Mishap New Arrivals Another Famine Fine Clothing Forbidden Our First Church A Troublesome Person The Village of Merry Mount Punishing Thomas Morton Philip Ratcliff's Crime In the Pillory Stealing from the Indians The Passing of New Laws Master Pormont's School School Discipline Other Tools of Torture Difficult Lessons Other Schools Raising Flax Preparing Flax Spinning, Bleaching, Weaving What We Girls Do at Home Making Soap Soap from Bayberries Goose-picking A Change of Governors Flight of Roger Williams Sir Harry Vane Making Sugar Sugaring Dinner Training Day Shooting for a Prize Lecture Day Punishment for Evildoers Murder of John Oldham Savages on the Warpath Pequot Indians

Ruth of Boston - James Otis




Launching the Ship

It is not well that I let my mind go back into the past. I should think only of the future, and of what we are doing here in Boston, the most important of which just now is the launching of our ship.

She is what sailors call "bark rigged," which is the same as saying that she has three masts; but yet not as much of rigging as a ship.

Her name, painted on the stern, is Blessing of the Bay, and there is hardly any need for me to say that every man, woman, and child in the town stood near at hand to see her as she slipped clown the well greased ways into the river, where she rode as gracefully as a swan.

[Illustration] from Ruth of Boston by James Otis

I have already said that when the Lyon came in, at the time of the famine, she appeared the most beautiful vessel I had ever seen, and next to her comes the Blessing of the Bay. As Governor Winthrop said in the short lecture he gave us before launching, she was Boston made, of Boston timber, and would be sailed by Boston sailors, so that when she goes out across the ocean, people shall know that there are Englishmen far overseas who are striving, with God's help, to make a country which shall one day stand equal with the England we have left forever.

It is while speaking of the launching that I am reminded of a very comical mishap to Master Winthrop, and I may sit it down without disrespect to him, for he is pleased to join in the mirth whenever it is spoken of as something to cause laughter.