n me.

The captain, as I mentioned to you, promised to put me on shore at
Arendall or Gothenburg in his way to Elsineur, but contrary winds obliged
us to pass both places during the night. In the morning, however, after
we had lost sight of the entrance of the latter bay, the vessel was
becalmed; and the captain, to oblige me, hanging out a signal for a
pilot, bore down towards the shore.

My attention was particularly directed to the lighthouse, and you can
scarcely imagine with what anxiety I watched two long hours for a boat to
emancipate me; still no one appeared. Every cloud that flitted on the
horizon was hailed as a liberator, till approaching nearer, like most of
the prospects sketched by hope, it dissolved under the eye into
disappointment.

Weary of expectation, I then began to converse with the captain on the
subject, and from the tenor of the information my questions drew forth I
soon concluded that if I waited for a boat I had little chance of getting
on shore at this place. Despotism, as is usually the case, I found had
here cramped the industry of man. The pilots being paid by the king, and
scantily, they will not run into any danger, or even quit their hovels,
if they can possibly avoid it, only to fulfil what is termed their duty.
How different is it on the English coast, where, in the most stormy
weather, boats immediately hail you, brought out by the expectation of
extraordinary profit.

Disliking to sail for Elsineur, and still more to lie at anchor or cruise
about the coast for several days, I exerted all my rhetoric to prevail on
the captain to let me have the ship's boat, and though I added the most
forcible of arguments, I for a long the addressed him in vain.

It is a kind of rule at sea not to send out a boat. The captain was a
good-natured man; but men with common minds seldom break through general
rules. Prudence is ever the resort of weakness, and they rarely go as
far as they may in any undertaking who are determined not to go beyond it
on any account. If, however, I had some trouble with the captain, I did
not lose much time with the sailors, for they, all alacrity, hoisted out
the boat the moment I obtained permission, and promised to row me to the
lighthouse.

I did not once allow myself to doubt of obtaining a conveyance from
thence round the rocks--and then away for Gothenburg--confinement is so
unpleasant.

The day was fine, and I enjoyed the water till, approaching the