t I was the tarantula
which had bitten them, hated me accordingly, and not a jot more than I
hated him.

The captain was a very large, ill-made, broad-shouldered man, with a
lack-lustre eye, a pair of thick lips, and a very unmeaning countenance.
He wore a large pair of epaulettes; he was irritable in his temper; and
when roused, which was frequent, was always violent and overbearing.
His voice was like thunder and when he launched out on the poor
midshipmen, they reminded me of the trembling bird which, when
fascinated by the eye of the snake, loses its powers, and falls at once
into the jaws of the monster. When much excited, he had a custom of
shaking his shoulders up and down; and his epaulettes, on these
occasions, flapped like the huge ears of a trotting elephant. At the
most distant view of his person or sound of his voice, every midshipman,
not obliged to remain, fled, like the land-crabs on a West-India beach.
He was incessantly taunting me, was sure to find some fault or other
with me, and sneeringly called me "one of your frigate midshipmen."

Irritated by this unjust treatment, I one day answered that I _was_ a
frigate midshipman, and hoped I could do my duty as well as any
line-of-battle midshipman, of my own standing, in the service. For this
injudicious and rather impertinent remark, I was ordered aft on the
quarter-deck, and the captain went in to the admiral, and asked
permission to flog me; but the admiral refused, observing, that he did
not admire the system of flogging young gentlemen: and, moreover, in the
present instance he saw no reason for it. So I escaped; but I led a sad
life of it, and often did I pray for the return of my own ship.

Among other exercises of the fleet, we used always to reef topsails at
sunset, and this was usually done by all the ships at the same moment,--
waiting the signal from the admiral to begin; in this exercise there was
much foolish rivalry, and very serious accidents, as well as numerous
punishments, took place, in consequence of one ship trying to excel
another. On these occasions our captain would bellow and foam at the
mouth, like a mad bull, up and down the quarter-deck. One fine evening
the signal was made, the topsails lowered, and the men laying out on the
yards, when a poor fellow from the main-topsail-yard fell, in his trying
to lay out; and, striking his shoulder against the main channels, broke
his arm. I saw he was disabled, and could not swim: