etta_ had arrived.

"1799. Piggs at Pickering, L125 9 8
1801. Do., 181 8 8
1802. Do., 208 4 6
1815. Old Tom's expenses, turnpikes at Pickering, 0 6 6

In 1785 when the _Henrietta_ made her annual voyage to the northern seas
she had on board William Scoresby who in five years' time was to become
captain of the vessel. He was the son of a small farmer at Cropton and was
born on the 3rd of May 1760. His parents wished him to keep to
agricultural pursuits and after a very brief education at the village
school he commenced this arduous form of labour at the age of nine. He
kept to this work until he was twenty when he could no longer resist his
longings for a broader sphere of work. To obtain this he went to Whitby
and apprenticed himself to a ship-owner. He acquired a thorough knowledge
of seamanship with great rapidity and in his second year of service at sea
detected an error in the reckoning which would otherwise have caused the
loss of the ship. For this, his only reward was the ill-will of the mate
whose mistake he had exposed. He therefore joined the _Speedwell_ an
ordnance ship carrying stores to Gibraltar but falling in with the Spanish
fleet the _Speedwell_ was captured. Her men having been taken to Cadiz
they were sent inland to San Lucar de Mayor. From that place, through
being somewhat carelessly guarded, Scoresby and one of his companions were
successful in making their escape. They reached England after various
adventures and Scoresby having endured many hardships at sea settled down
again to farm work at Cropton for two years. Although having only the very
smallest means he was married at this time to Lady Mary Smith (she was
born on Lady-day), the eldest daughter of Mr John Smith, a landed
proprietor in a small way and a native of Cropton.

Having reached the position of skipper of the famous _Henrietta_, in 1790,
when only thirty years of age, Scoresby was saved from the financial
extremes to which he was likely to have been reduced, owing to his small
income and the increasing expenses of his family. Having successfully
commanded the _Henrietta_ for seven seasons and having augmented in this
way the incomes of the half-dozen Pickeronians interested in the success
of the ship, Captain Scoresby's reputation stood high in the Greenland
trade. In 1798 he accepted the more advan