Gulliver spent about five months at home with his wife and children, very happily. He adds that it would have been so, if only he had learned to know when he was well off.
Leaving his wife expecting a child, he accepted a good offer to captain the Adventurer, a stout merchant ship of 350 tons. He understood navigation well and was tired of working as a surgeon at sea. So he took a skilful young surgeon named Robert Purefoy aboard.
They sailed from Portsmouth on 7 August 1710. Captain Pocock of Bristol, whom they met at Tenerife, was parted from them by a storm, and his ship went down with only the cabin boy saved. Gulliver writes that Pocock was an honest man and a good sailor but too set in his own opinions. Had he taken Gulliver’s advice, he might be safe at home with his family now.