y cares for a
Charity-Boy. He gave him a piece of his mind whenever he chose, and he
would have his own Way, and had it. It was the delight of the Seamen to
see their Tyrant and Bully degraded for a time under the supreme
authority of the Pilot, who drank the Skipper's rum; who had the best
Beef and Burgoo at the Skipper's table; who wore, if he was so minded,
the Skipper's tarpaulin; who used the Skipper's telescope, and thumbed
his charts, and kicked his Cabin-boy, and swore his oaths, till, but for
the fear of the Trinity House, I think the Skipper would have been
mighty glad to fling him over the taffrail. But the reign of this Great
Mogul of Lights and Points and Creeks soon came to an end. A River Pilot
was the lesser evil, a Channel Pilot was the greater one; but both were
got rid of at last. Then the Skipper was himself again. He would drink
himself blind with Punch in the forenoon, or cob his cabin-boy to
Death's door after dinner for a frolic. He could play the very Devil
among the Hands, and they perforce bore with his capricious cruelty; for
there is no running away from a Ship at Sea. Jack Shark is Gaoler, and
keeps the door tight. There is but one way out of it, and that is to
Mutiny, and hey for the Black Flag and a Pirate's Free and Jovial
Life![A] But Mutiny is Hanging, and Piracy is Hanging, and Gibbeting
too; and how seldom it is that you find Bold Hearts who have Stuff
enough in them to Run the Great Risk! As on sea, so it is on land. That
Ugly Halter dances before a man's eyes, and dazes him away from the
Firmest Resolve. For how long will Schoolboys endure the hideous
enormities of a Gnawbit before they come to the Supreme Revolt of a
Barring-out! And for how long will a People suffer the mad tyranny of a
Ruler, who outrages their Laws, who strangles their Liberties, who
fleeces and squeezes and tramples upon them, before they take Heart of
Grace, and up Pike and Musket, and down-derry-down with your Ruler, who
is ordinarily the basest of Poltroons, and runs away in a fright so soon
as the first Goose is bold enough to cry out that the Capitol _shall_ be
saved!

Nothing of this did I think aboard _The Humane Hopwood_. I was too young
to have any thought at all, save of rage and anguish when it pleased
Captain Handsell, being in a cheerful mood, to belabour me, till I was
black and blue, with a rope's end. At the beginning of the voyage I was
put into the hold, ironed, with the rest of the convicts,