a shot in the
locker and was well-nigh starving, and it's my duty to help you; and so
I will, boy, as long as I can keep my fiddle-stick moving, and get a
crust to put into my mouth."

Jerry did me an essential service, for having seen better days he had
got some learning, which was more than most men in the ship possessed,
and he taught me to read and write, of which I knew nothing when I came
to sea. Even my father, though boatswain of a line-of-battle ship, had
not been much of a scholar. However, I am not now going to write about
myself or my own adventures. When the ship was paid off, as my poor
mother could not support me, and I had no fancy for any other calling, I
went to sea again with Jerry, who got the rating of cook's mate on board
the _Thunderer_, seventy-four.

I was now a stout lad, and could stand to my gun or handle a cutlass as
well as any man. We were stationed off Cadiz, with three other smaller
vessels, looking out for a French squadron expected to sail for that
port. Being driven off the coast by bad weather, on our return we found
that the Frenchmen had slipped out, so away we went under all the canvas
we could set in pursuit. We had come in sight of the _Achille_, a
sixty-four gun ship, and, soon getting up with her, we opened our
broadside, receiving a pretty hot fire from her in return. We were
blazing away at each other, when a noise louder than all our guns
together sounded in my ears, and I felt myself lifted off my legs and
shot along the deck. For the moment I thought the world had come to an
end, or that the ship had blown up. On opening my eyes, I caught sight
of a number of dead and wounded men lying around me, and the after-part
of the ship in flames. Among them, seeing Jerry, I picked myself up and
ran to him.

"Are you killed, Jerry?" I asked.

"No, it's only my wooden leg knocked away," he answered. "Just get me a
mop-stick, or bit of a broken pike, and I shall soon be on my pins
again."

Jerry having soon, spliced a piece of the mop-stick which I brought him
to the stump of his leg, I set him on his pins. Meantime I found that
one of the quarter-deck guns, having burst had created the havoc I have
described and set the ship on fire. All hands labouring away with
buckets, we got the flames extinguished, and stood after the enemy, who
was trying to escape. We again, however, came up with her; and running
alongside, the boarders were called away, headed by our fi