 Between 1784 and 1788, he was carried on the books of HMS "Europa" as a servant to the captain (his uncle, Alan Gardner) but most likely his first shipboard service was as a junior midshipman on HMS "Goliath".Gardner arranged for Barrie to serve as a midshipman aboard from December 1790 until 1795, during George Vancouver's voyage of diplomacy and exploration along the Pacific coast of North America.Many of his letters home survive, describing his experiences of adventure, punctuated by periods of boredom after he exhausted the books on the ships.