When did Joseph Conrad begin his career as a sailor?

Joseph Conrad began his career at sea in the French merchant service, where he sailed on ships belonging to a merchant named Delestang. His initial voyage, aboard the Mont-Blanc to Martinique, was as a passenger, followed by service as an apprentice on the ship's next voyage.1

While he later became a renowned British writer, his transition to the British merchant navy occurred in April 1878, when he signed on as a deckhand on a British freighter. He subsequently served 16 years in the British merchant navy, eventually obtaining his master mariner’s certificate in 1886.1