Queen by Alex Haley

depressed Jamie, and halfway
    down the drive he spurred his horse to a gallop. The sudden energy and
    easy motion of the horse broke
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    him from melancholy, for he was on his way at last. He galloped through
    the chill morning, the crisp wind biting his hands and ears, and felt an
    extraordinary power of masculinity within him, for he was taking on the
    world.
        He stayed with Eleanor in Dublin again, and said his goodbyes to his
        sister and Washington, and in late March he took the ferry to Liverpool.
        As the boat sailed out of the harbor, he looked back on his native land
        with little regret, for his father's insult still rang in his ears.
    "You will never amount to anything."

    He would amount to something, he swore to himself. He was casting off his
        old life and taking on a new. He was not a boy anymore, he was a man,
        hardened by life, blooded in war, forged in prison.
        He was not young Jamie either. The diminutive always made him feel
        little, if loved, and not quite a man. It had been used to distinguish
        him from his father, but there was no need of it now, for he had no
        father. A new name for a new life seemed fitting, and anyway, it was not
        a new name, it was his true name, and his father's name, and perhaps to
        spite the man who had sired him, he called out his name.
    "James," he shouted at the seagulls.
    And again, to convince himself.
    "I am James."
        In May, when he sailed from Liverpool on the good ship America, under the
        command of Captain Silas Swain and bound for Philadelphia, the passenger
        manifest listed him simply as James Jackson.
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    The ship pitched and rolled, and mountainous waves endlessly broke over
    the bow. The storm had raged for two days, and the passengers had come to
    believe that the ship could not withstand the tempest, and must break
    apart. Most of the passengers, apart from James and some of the crew, were
    wretchedly ill, and spent their days in their cabins, moaning their fear
    and their distress. To a few of those who had never been to sea, the
    sickness and fear were worse than death, and they begged the good Lord for
    deliverance, and if that meant the ship would be smashed apart and plunge
    them to a watery grave, it was preferable to their present plight. There
    was talk of mutiny among some of the men who had no experience of the sea,
    of forcing the captain to return to port, but he, an old sea dog, only
    laughed at them.
        "Would You have me go back into the teeth of the gale when we have nearly
        ridden it out?"
        They were hardly convinced that an end to their suffering was in sight,
        but it gave them a small hope, and they could not countenance going back
        and into the storm again.
        The missionary Reverend Blake and his good wife spent hours on their
        knees, when they were not on their bunks being ill, praying to their
        Savior to calm the seas, as at Galilee, and on the third day, when the
        waves subsided and the wind abated, they believed He had wrought a
        miracle.
     
    Jamie found his sea legs early. The Irish Sea had been choppy, but he soon
    got used to the rolling motion of the ship and spent happy hours on deck,
    watching the sailors clamber up the ropes with the agility of monkeys,
    furling or unfurling the vast sheets of canvas to mysterious commands, or
    singing sea chanteys when, as if on their knees in a pagan temple to the
     
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        BLOODLINES 51
     
    sea, they holystoned the wooden decks to a pristine whiteness. He loved the
    salty, briny wind, and the companionship of his fellow passengers, who
    shared, in varying degrees, a fear of their formidable voyage, but were
    united in a common optimism that their destination would be the earthly
    paradise they sought.
        The great port of Liverpool had excited