How to catch a ship (Aaron Burr method)
Jan. 14th, 2025 11:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ceiswyn1. Book your passage, for £30, to be paid... later.
2. Jingle the two halfpence in your pocket.
3. Set out to sell literally everything that you own or have bought that is sellable.
4. Ask your official minder at the Alien Office for a passport in a fake name.
5. While you're there, try to sell him a book for £10. Be very surprised when, after asking you why you're selling, he loans you £10 and doesn't take the book.
6. Buy a pair of pantaloons that you don't want.
7. Discover that you have already sold virtually everything that is sellable, and what remains is definitely not worth £20.
8. Go to your official minder at the Alien Office and, in utter desperation, just beg him for the £20. Receive £20 and an amended passport that is good for any fake name you care to use.
9. Pack and ship all your belongings to be loaded onto the ship.
10. Miss your stagecoach. (To be fair, they changed the departure time on him)
11. Take the next stagecoach, arrive at Gravesend at 5pm, and discover that your ship sailed at noon and the Alien Office is closed.
12. Track down the local Alien Office bod so that you can go through customs and get the relevant stamp/signature/whatever.
13. Hire a boatman to chase your ship down the Thames.
14. After 12 miles, stop at a tavern to deal with the hypothermia caused by being on the Thames on a windy March evening without a greatcoat.
15. Buy some straw.
16. Continue down the Thames, but this time lying on the straw, and with the rowers having taken pity on you and thrown their greatcoats over you.
17. Have a nice snooze for the next 15 miles or so.
18. Around midnight, be woken up to finally board your ship and be reunited with all your belongings.
I don't think Burr ever made a stagecoach departure time in his life, and he *never* learned.
(I am also impressed that a man who struggled every night to sleep in an actual comfy bed, was apparently out like a light on a pile of straw in the bottom of a rowboat)
2. Jingle the two halfpence in your pocket.
3. Set out to sell literally everything that you own or have bought that is sellable.
4. Ask your official minder at the Alien Office for a passport in a fake name.
5. While you're there, try to sell him a book for £10. Be very surprised when, after asking you why you're selling, he loans you £10 and doesn't take the book.
6. Buy a pair of pantaloons that you don't want.
7. Discover that you have already sold virtually everything that is sellable, and what remains is definitely not worth £20.
8. Go to your official minder at the Alien Office and, in utter desperation, just beg him for the £20. Receive £20 and an amended passport that is good for any fake name you care to use.
9. Pack and ship all your belongings to be loaded onto the ship.
10. Miss your stagecoach. (To be fair, they changed the departure time on him)
11. Take the next stagecoach, arrive at Gravesend at 5pm, and discover that your ship sailed at noon and the Alien Office is closed.
12. Track down the local Alien Office bod so that you can go through customs and get the relevant stamp/signature/whatever.
13. Hire a boatman to chase your ship down the Thames.
14. After 12 miles, stop at a tavern to deal with the hypothermia caused by being on the Thames on a windy March evening without a greatcoat.
15. Buy some straw.
16. Continue down the Thames, but this time lying on the straw, and with the rowers having taken pity on you and thrown their greatcoats over you.
17. Have a nice snooze for the next 15 miles or so.
18. Around midnight, be woken up to finally board your ship and be reunited with all your belongings.
I don't think Burr ever made a stagecoach departure time in his life, and he *never* learned.
(I am also impressed that a man who struggled every night to sleep in an actual comfy bed, was apparently out like a light on a pile of straw in the bottom of a rowboat)
