The wind still favourable and from the south, making us all night about
ten knots. The Captain complains of the alterations made in this line of
packets, since one of the old captains took a share. The seamen have ten
or twelve dollars per month; the Captain is obliged to take a fourth
share; a loss if only two or three passengers; six or seven about pay
with a fair cargo. This is Captain Wilson's 97th crossing; only 36 years
old; went to sea at fourteen; married about four years ago a French lady
at Bordeaux, the father American, with the mother French; two children.
A very wet disagreeable day, so that we could not take the usual
exercise on deck, and yet tempted to eat more by way of pastime. At
dinner one or two Yankees found great fault with my saying "A good deal
of factories," declaring it to be bad English, in which Mr. Frankland
also acquiesced, thinking it improper to apply the word "deal" to
numbers; a deal of money, but not a deal of guineas. I admitted it might
be more elegant, though the other was not inaccurate. (See "Johnson's
Dic.")