Happy Jack, and Other Tales of the Sea

Have any of you made a passage on board a steamer between London and Leith? If you have, you will have seen no small number of brigs and brigantines, with sails of all tints, from doubtful white to decided black-some deeply-laden, making their way to the southward, others with their sides high out of the water, heeling over to the slightest breeze, steering north.