In cases of collision, portions of the crews are sometimes suddenly exchanged; and a man will find himself, unconscious of, an effort, on board a strange vessel, then arouse himself, as if from an unquiet sleep, and return to his ship as rapidly as he left her.
It sometimes happens that vessels, which have run into each other in the night time, separate under circumstances causing awkward results.
The ship Pactolus, of Boston, bound from Hamburg through the English channel, while running one night in a thick fog near the Goodwin Sands, fell in with several Dutch galliots, lying to, waiting for daylight, and while attempting to steer clear of one, ran foul of another, giving the Dutchman a terrible shaking and carrying away one of the masts.

The captain, a young man, was below, asleep in his berth, dreaming, it may be, of happy scenes in which a young and smiling "jung frow" formed a prominent object.

He rushed from his berth, believing his last hour was come, sprang upon deck, and seeing a ship alongside, made one leap into the chainwales of the strange vessel, and another one over the rail to the deck.

A moment afterwards the vessels separated; the galliot was lost sight of in the fog, and Mynheer was astonished to find himself, while clad in the airy costume of a shirt and drawers, safely and suddenly transferred from his comfortable little vessel to the deck of an American ship bound across the Atlantic.
The poor fellow jabbered away, in his uncouth native language, until his new shipmates feared his jaws would split asunder.

They furnished him with garments, entertained him hospitably, and on the following day landed him on the pier at Dover.
We met with no extraordinary occurrences on our passage to the United States until we reached the Gulf Stream, noted for heavy squalls, thunder storms, and a turbulent sea, owing to the effect on the atmosphere produced by the difference of temperatures between the water in the current and the water on each side.
The night on which we entered the Gulf Stream, off the coast of the Carolinas, the weather was exceedingly suspicious.