He was well read in the classics, and familiar with the writings of the old British poets.
He could quote elaborate passages from the best authors, and converse fluently and learnedly on almost any subject.
Notwithstanding his cultivated mind and intellectual powers, which should have placed him in a high position in society, he appeared satisfied with his condition, and aspired to no loftier sphere than that of a common sailor.

We often meet with anomalies in the human character, for which it would puzzle the most learned psychologist to account.
What strange and sad event had occurred in the early part of that man's career, to change the current of his fortune, and make him contented in a condition so humble, and a slave to habits so degrading?
His story, if faithfully told, might furnish a record of ambitious projects and sanguine expectations, followed by blighted hopes which palsied all succeeding exertions, and plunged him into the depths of dissipation and vice.
Captain Turner and the worthy master of the John, the better to conceal their iniquities from the lynx-eyed satellites of the law, agreed to make an exchange of vessels, both having been officially condemned as unseaworthy.

For an equivalent, the schooner was to be laden with a cargo, principally of molasses, and properly furnished with stores, provisions, and water, for a passage to the United States by the way of St.Bartholomew.The crews of the two vessels were then to be interchanged, and Captain Turner his mate and crew, were to take up their quarters in the John.
The arrangement was carried into effect; but two of the Dolphin's crew, dissatisfied with the proceedings on board the brig, and thinking matters would not be improved by a transfer to the schooner, and being under no obligation to follow Captain Turner to another vessel, demanded their discharge.

In their stead he shipped a boy, about fourteen years of age, whom he had persuaded to run away from an English merchant ship, in which he was an apprentice, and an old Frenchman, who had served many years in the carpenter's gang in a French man-of-war, and who understood hardly a word of the English language.
We sailed from St.Pierre the day after we had taken possession of the schooner, bound directly for St.Bartholomew..