We left the Mersey with a fine breeze and soon passed the headmost vessels in the fleet.

Our ship was large, a fine model, newly coppered, well provided with sails, and having left part of her cargo in Liverpool was in good ballast trim, and slipped through the water like a fish.
For eight days this easterly wind continued, the ship sometimes carrying top-gallant sails and a fore-topmast studding sail, and sometimes running directly before the wind under double-reefed topsails and foresail, progressing at the rate of ten, eleven, and eleven and a half knots.

Chronometers were unknown in those days, and lunar observations, owing to the cloudy weather and other causes, could not be taken during the passage.

It is, therefore, not remarkable that under the circumstances, and with a heavy sea following the ship, the judgment of the navigators was at fault and the ship overran her reckoning.
On the eighth day after the Lady Madison left the dock, the atmosphere being hazy and the temperature unusually cool, I was standing on the lee side of the forecastle when something afar off on the bow caught my eye.
It looked like a massive fortress on a mountain rock of crystal.

Its appearance, different from anything I had ever seen on the ocean, excited my wonder.