He was brusque, authoritative, given to contradiction, rough though never dirty in his personal belongings, and inclined to indulge in a sort of quiet raillery which sometimes was not thoroughly understood.

Thus, when Pierce describes an archetypal Danishman as one who has ‘cheekes that sag like a womans dugs ouer his chin-bone, his apparel … puft vp with bladdres of Taffatie, and his back like biefe stuft with Parsly …’, the gloss continues in the same vein: ‘If you know him not by any of these marks, look on his fingers, & you shal be sure to find half a dozen siluer rings, worth thre pence a peece.’

I made a speaking trumpet of my hands and commenced to whoop “Ahoy!” and “Hello!” at the top of my lungs. […] The Colonel woke up, and, after asking what in brimstone was the matter, opened his mouth and roared “Hi!” and “Hello!” like the bull of Bashan.

In Witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape Cod the eleventh of November, in the Reign of our Sovereign Lord, King James of England, France and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth. Anno Domini, 1620.