Editing Joseph Conrad (section)

===Merchant marine===
{{main|Joseph Conrad's career at sea}}
In Marseille Conrad had an intense social life, often stretching his budget.{{sfnp|Najder|1969|p=173}} A trace of these years can be found in the northern [[Corsica]] town of [[Luri, Haute-Corse|Luri]], where there is a plaque to a Corsican merchant seaman, Dominique Cervoni, whom Conrad befriended.  Cervoni became the inspiration for some of Conrad's characters, such as the title character of the 1904 novel ''[[Nostromo]]''. Conrad visited Corsica with his wife in 1921, partly in search of connections with his long-dead friend and fellow merchant seaman.<ref>{{cite web| url=https://eddieplayfair.com/2014/08/06/conrad-in-corsica/| title=Conrad in Corsica| date=2014-08-06| access-date=25 October 2018| archive-date=12 April 2019| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190412004250/https://eddieplayfair.com/2014/08/06/conrad-in-corsica/| url-status=live}}</ref>{{unreliable source?|date=May 2020}}
[[File:Otago bark 1869.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|''[[Otago (barque)|Otago]]'', the [[barque]] captained by Conrad in 1888 and first three months of 1889]] 
In late 1877, Conrad's maritime career was interrupted by the refusal of the Russian consul to provide documents needed for him to continue his service. As a result, Conrad fell into debt and, in March 1878, he attempted suicide. He survived, and received further financial aid from his uncle, allowing him to resume his normal life.{{sfnp|Najder|1969|p=173}} After nearly four years in France and on French ships, Conrad joined the British merchant marine, enlisting in April 1878 (he had most likely started learning English shortly before).{{sfnp|Najder|1969|p=173}}

For the next fifteen years, he served under the [[Red Ensign]]. He worked on a variety of ships as crew member (steward, apprentice, [[able seaman]]) and then as third, second and first mate, until eventually achieving captain's rank. During the 19 years from the time that Conrad had left [[Kraków]], in October 1874, until he signed off the ''Adowa'', in January 1894, he had worked in ships, including long periods in port, for 10 years and almost 8 months. He had spent just over 8 years at sea—9 months of it as a passenger.{{sfnp|Najder|2007|p=187}} His sole captaincy took place in 1888–89, when he commanded the [[barque]] [[Otago (barque)|''Otago'']] from [[Sydney]] to [[Mauritius]].{{sfnp|Najder|1969|p=174}}

During a brief call in India in 1885–86, 28-year-old Conrad sent five letters to Joseph Spiridion,{{NoteTag|Joseph Spiridion's full name was "Joseph Spiridion Kliszczewski" but he used the abbreviated form, presumably from deference to British ignorance of Polish pronunciation. Conrad seems to have picked up this idea from Spiridion: in his fourth letter, he signed himself "J. Conrad"—the first recorded use of his future pen name.{{sfnp|Najder|2007|pp=103–04}}}} a Pole eight years his senior whom he had befriended at [[Cardiff]] in June 1885, just before sailing for Singapore in the [[clipper]] [[Full-rigged ship|ship]] ''Tilkhurst''. These letters are Conrad's first preserved texts in English. His English is generally correct but stiff to the point of artificiality; many fragments suggest that his thoughts ran along the lines of Polish [[syntax]] and [[phraseology]].

More importantly, the letters show a marked change in views from those implied in his earlier correspondence of 1881–83. He had abandoned "hope for the future" and the conceit of "sailing [ever] toward Poland", and his [[Panslavism|Panslavic]] ideas. He was left with a painful sense of the hopelessness of the [[Polish question]] and an acceptance of England as a possible refuge. While he often adjusted his statements to accord to some extent with the views of his addressees, the theme of hopelessness concerning the prospects for Polish independence often occurs authentically in his correspondence and works before 1914.{{sfnp|Najder|2007|pp=104–05}}

[[File:JOSEPH CONRAD 1857-1924 Novelist lived here.jpg|thumb|upright=1.0|Conrad lived at 17 Gillingham Street, [[Pimlico]], central London after returning from the Congo]]
The year 1890 marked Conrad's first return to Poland, where he would visit his uncle and other relatives and acquaintances.{{sfnp|Najder|1969|p=174}}{{sfnp|Najder|2007|pp=140-142}} This visit took place while he was waiting to proceed to the [[Congo Free State]], having been hired by [[Albert Thys]], deputy director of the ''[[Société Anonyme Belge pour le Commerce du Haut-Congo]]''.{{sfnp|Najder|2007|pp=138–144}} Conrad's association with the Belgian company, on the [[Congo River]], would inspire his novella, ''[[Heart of Darkness]]''.{{sfnp|Najder|1969|p=174}} During this 1890 period in the [[Congo Free State|Congo]], Conrad befriended [[Roger Casement]], who was also working for Thys, operating a trading and transport station in [[Matadi]]. In 1903, as British Consul to Boma, Casement was commissioned to investigate [[Atrocities in the Congo Free State|abuses in the Congo]], and later in Amazonian Peru, and was knighted in 1911 for his advocacy of [[human rights]]. Casement later became active in [[Irish Republicanism]] after leaving the British consular service.{{sfnp|Najder|2007|pp=149–51}}{{NoteTag|A quarter-century later, in 1916, when Casement was sentenced to death for treason, Conrad, though he had hoped Casement would not be so sentenced, declined to join an appeal for clemency by many English writers, including Conrad's friend [[John Galsworthy]].{{sfnp|Najder|2007|p=480}} In 1920 Conrad told his niece Karola Zagórska, visiting him in England: "Casement did not hesitate to accept honours, decorations and distinctions from the English Government while surreptitiously arranging various affairs that he was embroiled in. In short: he was plotting against those who trusted him."{{sfnp|Najder|2007|p=481}}}}

[[File:Torrens (ship, 1875) - NMM P6434.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.3|''[[Torrens (clipper ship)|Torrens]]'': Conrad made two round trips as [[first mate]], [[London]] to [[Adelaide]], between November 1891 and July 1893.]] 
Conrad left Africa at the end of December 1890, arriving in Brussels by late January of the following year. He rejoined the British merchant marines, as first mate, in November.{{sfnp|Najder|2007|pp=161-167}} When he left London on 25 October 1892 aboard the passenger clipper ship ''[[Torrens (clipper ship)|Torrens]]'', one of the passengers was William Henry Jacques, a [[tuberculosis|consumptive]] [[Cambridge University]] graduate who died less than a year later on 19 September 1893. According to Conrad's ''[[A Personal Record]]'', Jacques was the first reader of the still-unfinished manuscript of Conrad's ''[[Almayer's Folly]]''. Jacques encouraged Conrad to continue writing the novel.{{sfnp|Najder|2007|p=181}}
[[File:John galsworthy.jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|[[John Galsworthy]], whom Conrad met on ''[[Torrens (clipper ship)|Torrens]]'']]
Conrad completed his last long-distance voyage as a seaman on 26 July 1893 when the ''Torrens'' docked at London and "J. Conrad Korzemowin"—per the certificate of discharge—debarked. 

When the ''Torrens'' had left Adelaide on 13 March 1893, the passengers had included two young Englishmen returning from Australia and New Zealand: 25-year-old lawyer and future novelist [[John Galsworthy]]; and Edward Lancelot Sanderson, who was going to help his father run a boys' preparatory school at [[Elstree School|Elstree]]. They were probably the first Englishmen and non-sailors with whom Conrad struck up a friendship and he would remain in touch with both. In one of Galsworthy's first literary attempts, ''The Doldrums'' (1895–96), the protagonist—first mate Armand—is modelled after Conrad. 

At Cape Town, where the ''Torrens'' remained from 17 to 19 May, Galsworthy left the ship to look at the local mines. Sanderson continued his voyage and seems to have been the first to develop closer ties with Conrad.{{sfnp|Najder|2007|pp=182–83}} Later that year, Conrad would visit his relatives in Poland and Ukraine once again.{{sfnp|Najder|1969|p=174}}{{sfnp|Najder|2007|pp=183-185}}