He then served on several British merchant ships crossing the Atlantic, visiting London and Gibraltar, and ports throughout the Caribbean. He quarreled with his captain off the western coast of Africa and was discharged, cheated of his wages, and abandoned on Princes Island, in the Gulf of Guinea. He found another ship, managed to evade several attempted impressments by British navy ships, but eventually in 1812 was impressed to serve on the brig "Burlette", which was convoying a merchant fleet through the Baltic Sea to Russia during the Gunboat War between Britain and Denmark during the Napoleonic Wars. He describes naval actions with the Danes.