The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ran Away to Sea, by Mayne Reid

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Title: Ran Away to Sea

Author: Mayne Reid

Release Date: December 13, 2007 [EBook #23853]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RAN AWAY TO SEA ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

Ran Away to Sea, by Captain Mayne Reid.

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Although this book seems to be very much like the sort of book Kingston
wrote, it actually predates that author by a few years. It tells the
story of a young boy, well brought up, who runs away to sea, despite his
parents' wishes. Unfortunately he asks for a place on board a ship
where many of the officers and crew are the vilest villains, and the
trade they engage in is slaving, despite that trade having been banned
half a century previously.

The story is told with all that sense of humour that Mayne Reid brings
to his works, though there are some harrowing moments when the treatment
of the "cargo" is being described.

This edition appeared just fifty years after the first edition, and it
may have been slightly condensed, because the earlier edition had many
more pages, though the edition used here has quite small, though very
clear type. It would have been nice if the proofreader had done a
better job.

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RAN AWAY TO SEA, BY CAPTAIN MAYNE REID.

CHAPTER ONE.

I was just sixteen when I ran away to sea.

I did not do so because I had been treated unkindly at home. On the
contrary, I left behind me a fond and indulgent father, a kind and
gentle mother, sisters and brothers who loved me, and who lamented for
me long after I was gone.

But no one had more cause to regret this act of filial disobedience than
I myself. I soon repented of what I had done, and often, in after life,
did it give me pain, when I reflected upon the pain I had caused to my
kindred and friends.

From my earliest years I had a longing for the sea--perhaps not so much
to be a sailor, as to travel over the great ocean, and behold its
wonders. This longing seemed to be par