on and of dirt, and distributed among the warrant officers.

It was to wait upon our persons, to administer to our wants, and to take
care of our culinary comforts, that Joshua Daunton was duly installed.
It was very ludicrous to see our late servant giving up his charge to
our present one--the solemnity with which the iron tureen, and the one
knife, and the three forks, that were not furcated, seeing that they had
but one prong each, were surrendered: Joshua's contempt at the sordid
poverty of the republic to which he was to administer, was quite as
undisguised as his surprise. I again and again requested him to do his
duty in some other capacity in the ship, but he steadily refused.

The silky, soft-spoken, cockney-dialected Josh got me into continual hot
water. At first he seemed to consider himself as my servant only;
consequently, he was continually thrashed, and I, on his appeal, taking
his part, had to endeavour to thrash the thrasher. Now, this could not
always be conveniently done. The more I suffered for this Daunton, the
more ardently he seemed to attach himself to me. But there appeared to
be much more malice than affection in his fidelity. Nothing prospered
either with me or my messmates. He contrived, in the most plausible
manner possible, to spoil our almost unspoilable meals. He always
managed to draw for us the very worst rations, and to lay the blame on
the purser's steward. In bringing aft our miserable dinners, his foot
would slip, or a man would run against him--or somebody had taken it off
the galley-fire, and thrown it in the manger. Salt-water would
miraculously intrude into my messmates' rum-bottle, and my daily pint of
wine was either sour or muddy, or sandy, or afflicted with something
that made it undrinkable. In one word, under the care of the good
Joshua, Messieurs the midshipmen ran a most eminent risk of being
actually starved.

Many a time, after we had gone through the motions of dining, without
eating, and as we sat in our dark, hot hole, over our undrinkable
potations and our inedible eatables, each of us resting his hungry head
upon his aching elbows, watching the progress of some animated piece of
biscuit, would Master Daunton, the slave of our lamp, which, by-the-by,
was a bottle bearing a miserably consumptive purser's dip, beside which
a farthing rushlight would look quite aldermanic--I say, this slave of
our lamp would perch himself down on the combings of the cable-