Journal
I kept a journal aboard the Berkshire in 1726 as I returned to Philadelphia to begin a career as a printer. Here are some excerpts while on the ship.
FRIDAY, July 22d, 1726.
-Yesterday in the afternoon we left London, and came to an anchor off Gravesend
about eleven at night. I lay ashore all night, and this morning' took a walk
up to the Windmill Hill, from whence I had an agreeable prospect of the country
for above twenty miles round, and two or three reaches of the river, with
ships and boats sailing both up and down, and Tilbury Fort on the other side,
which commands the river and passage to London. This Gravesend is a cursed
biting place; the chief dependence of the people being the advantage they
make of imposing upon strangers. If you buy anything of them, and give half
what they ask, you pay twice as much as the thing is worth. Thank God, we
shall leave it tomorrow.
Saturday, July 23.
-This day we weighed anchor and fell down with the tide, there being little
or no wind. In the afternoon we had a fresh gale, that brought us down to
Margate, where we shall lie at anchor this night. Most of the passengers are
very sick. Saw several porpoises, &c.
