ke a rational and legible form the
Log of _The Humane Hopwood_, which heretofore had been a kind of
cabalistic Register, full of blots, crosses, half-moons, and zigzags,
like the chalk score of an unlettered Ale-wife. And the more I read (of
surely the grandest and simplest language in the world), the more I
discovered how ignorant I was of that essential art of Spelling, and
blushed at the vile manner in which the Petition I had written to the
King of England was set down. And before we came to our voyage's end, I
had made a noticeable improvement in the Curious Mystery of writing
Plain English.

One day as the Skipper was taking Tobacco (for he was a great Smoker),
he said to me, "Jack, do you know what you are, lad?"

"Your cabin-boy," I answered; "bound to fetch and carry: hempen wages,
and not much better treated than a dog."

"You lie, you scum," Captain Handsell answered pleasantly. "You go
snacks with me in the very best, and your beef is boiled in my own
copper. But 'tisn't that I mean. Do you know how you hail on the
World's books? what the number of your mess in Life is?"

"Yes," I replied; "I'm a Transport. Was to have been hanged; but I wrote
out a Petition, and the Gentlemen in London gave it to the King, God
bless him!"

"Vastly well, mate!" continued the Captain. "Do you know what a
Transport is?"

"No; something very bad, I suppose; though I don't see that he can be
much worse off than a cabin-boy that's been cast for Death, and lain in
gaol with a bayonet-wound he got from a Grenadier,--let alone having
been among the Blacks, and paid anigh to Death by Gnawbit,--when he was
born a Gentleman."

"You lie again. To be a Transport is worse than aught you've had. Why a
cat in an oven without claws is an Angel of bliss along of a Transport!
You're living in a land of beans and bacon now, in a land of milk and
honey and new rum. Wait till you get to Jamaica. The hundred and odd
vagabonds that I've got aboard will be given over to the Sheriff at Port
Royal, and he'll sell 'em by auction; and for as long as they're sent
across the herring-pond they'll be slaves, and worse than slaves, to the
planters; for the black Niggers themselves, rot 'em! make a mock of a
Newgate bird. Hard work in the blazing sun, scarce enough to eat to keep
body and soul together, the cat-o'-nine-tails every day, with the
cow-hide for a change; and, when your term's out, not a Joe in your
pocket to help you to get back to your