my readers. Whether the carrying trade in which she had been employed had ceased to pay or not, I am not aware, but she was " laid up," i.e., partially dismantled , and hauled up on the beach out of the way of the tide. After being laid up some time, she was bought by a tradesman whom I very well knew, and whose descendants are now living in Hastings. Whether he bought her as principal or agent, I have no means of knowing, but I strongly suspect it was a mere business transaction on his part, and for which he received a liberal commission.
A gentleman I well know, now living in Hastings, superintended the launching of the vessel preparatory to her departure from Hastings. Some time afterwards two of her former crew, one of whom is now living in Hastings, and who has corroborated the main points in the following transaction, being on board another coasting vessel in the Thames, saw the old " Farmer's Delight" somewhat altered in form and rig, going leisurely up the Thames, and one of them said to the other, " I say _____, that looks just like our old craft, only they have altered her stern, and made her into a Billy Boy." The vessel had formerly been rigged as a sloop, i.e., with one mast, and her stem and stern were alike. In her altered state she had two masts, similar to what is now called " a dandy rig," and she had the ordinary square stern. Her name had also been altered to "The Nancy of Boston."
It appears that she was being towed up the Thames -
