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Early on the morning of departure a few hundred people mostly women stood on the pierhead of Canada Dock, watching the transport as she lay a short distance off in the stream with the Blue Peter at her fore and the St. George's ensign hanging astern.
At ten o'clock on the of August, 1831 the vessel was appointed to sail from the usual place, George's Pierhead, but a casual delay took place in starting, and it was eleven o'clock before she had got every thing in readiness. Whilst taking passengers on board, a carriage arrived at the Pierhead for embarkation.
They were passing Gravesend when Drake suddenly turned to Frobisher and remarked: "I say, Mr Frobisher, did you happen to notice a yellow-skinned chap standing on the pierhead as we left the dock?" "Why, yes," replied Frobisher. "That was the second time I'd seen him. The first time I cannoned into him at the dock gates as I was coming aboard, and sent him spinning.
A moment later, as the hawsers were cast off, the little crowd on the wharf called out "Three cheers for the Gara barquentine," which the Gara's crew acknowledged with three cheers for Pierhead, in the sailor fashion. We were moving slowly under the influence of the oared boats ahead of us, when a seaman at the forward capstan began to sing the solo part of an old capstan chanty.
It belonged to M. W. Foster, Esq. of Regent's park, London, who, with his wife and servant, were conveyed in it to the packet, and took their passage at the same time. They were all subsequently drowned, a little dog which accompanied them being the only survivor of this unfortunate group. When the steamer left the Pierhead her deck was thronged with passengers.
Before night she had lived an age; the hours of darkness were endless, but her father's return furnished excuse for another morning of early rising; and when Gray Michael and Tom had eaten, donned clean raiment and returned to the sea, Joan, having seen them to the pierhead, did not go home, but hastened straight away for Gorse Point, and arrived there earlier than ever she had done before.
She had visited the white cottage to find it locked up and empty; she had then joined the concourse at the pierhead, feeling certain that the Tregenza boat must still be at sea; and she now added her congratulations to the rest, then told Mrs. Tregenza her news. "I be comed to knaw if you've heard or seen anything o' Joan.
And if you think for a minute I wouldn't welcome her because that Vollar fell off a yard before he could find a preacher you're an old fool!" "Nettie must bear her burden: far better be dead than a stumbling block." "Well, I'd rather be a drunken pierhead jumper on the Waterloo Road than any such pious blue nose.
"When I was a kid, I used to go down to the harbor an' watch the ships comin' in an' goin' out," he went on cautiously. She nodded, and he resumed with more confidence: "I'd sit on the pierhead an' watch the ships. I knew they was bringing the smell of far lands in their holds."
He laid down his bag and roll, sat awhile listening to the shift of feet and the clatter of cargo winches on deck and pierhead. Then, growing drowsy, he stretched himself on a cushioned seat with his bag for a pillow and fell asleep. He woke with an odd sensation of his bed dropping out from under him.
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