ontained one of our
boatswain's mates and the coxswain of the launch with their delicate
ladies. On the roof was another of our men playing the fiddle. I expected
to see him fall off every moment, but, like a true sailor, he had learnt
to hold fast. The second coach contained the men's hats and their ladies'
bonnets. As they were not allowed to go farther than Plymouth, they had
been driving from Dock to that place and back again for the last two
hours. On their coming on board they brought with them the sign of
Whittington's cat, which belonged to the public-house in North Corner
Street, where they had dined. They gave the landlord fourteen shillings
for it, and two days after gave it to him back for nothing. On another
occasion twelve of them took six coaches, into which they stowed with
their ladies, to drive backwards and forwards from Plymouth to Dock six
times. The sternmost to pay for a dinner, of which the whole were to
partake, each kept bribing the coachman to go faster; the consequence was
that the money they gave for this task amounted to more than the hire of
the vehicles. When they made their appearance on board they were decorated
with shawls tied round them like scarfs, and three of them had portraits
of their females as large as an ordinary picture fastened round their
necks with a piece of a bell rope.

I prithee, reader, censure them not too harshly. Sailors possess shades
like other men; but when you reflect that they are on board their ships
for months in an open sea, exposed to all weather, privation, and
hardship, which they bear with philosophic patience, you will agree with
most people and admit that they deserve indulgence when they get on shore;
but you may wish for their sakes that they knew the value of money better.
You cannot change the Ethiopian's skin without boiling him in pitch, which
you know is a dangerous experiment. Sailors seldom arrive at the age of
reflection until they are past the meridian of life, and when it is almost
too late to lay by anything considerable to make them comfortable in their
old age.

I have known a boatswain's mate who a few months after he had joined the
ship received about twenty pounds. One of his messmates asked him to lend
him a few shillings. "That I will, my hearty," was his generous reply;
"here's a fist full for you. Pay me a fist full when you are able." The
master at arms who observed the action desired the borrower to count it;
it amounted to t