make a man. "I could swear like an
old salt," he says, "could drink as stiff a glass of grog as if I had
doubled Cape Horn, and could smoke like a locomotive. I was great at
cards, and was fond of gambling in every shape. At the close of dinner
one day," he continues, "my father turned everybody out of the cabin,
locked the door, and said to me, 'David, what do you mean to be?'

"'I mean to follow the sea,' I said.

"'Follow the sea!' exclaimed father, 'yes, be a poor, miserable,
drunken sailor before the mast, kicked and cuffed about the world, and
die in some fever hospital in a foreign clime!'

"'No, father,' I replied, 'I will tread the quarterdeck, and command as
you do.'

"'No, David; no boy ever trod the quarterdeck with such principles as
you have and such habits as you exhibit. You will have to change your
whole course of life if you ever become a man.'

"My father left me and went on deck. I was stunned by the rebuke, and
overwhelmed with mortification. 'A poor, miserable, drunken sailor
before the mast, kicked and cuffed about the world, and die in some
fever hospital!' 'That's my fate, is it? I'll change my life, and _I_
WILL CHANGE IT AT ONCE. I will never utter another oath, never drink
another drop of intoxicating liquor, never gamble,' and, as God is my
witness," said the admiral, solemnly, "I have kept these three vows to
this hour."

II. A BORN LEADER

The event which proved David Glasgow Farragut's qualities as a leader
happened before he was thirteen.

He was with his adopted father, Captain Porter, on board the Essex,
when war was declared with England in 1812. A number of prizes were
captured by the Essex, and David was ordered by Captain Porter to take
one of the captured vessels, with her commander as navigator, to
Valparaiso. Although inwardly quailing before the violent-tempered old
captain of the prize ship, of whom, as he afterward confessed, he was
really "a little afraid," the boy assumed the command with a fearless
air.

On giving his first order, that the "main topsail be filled away," the
trouble began. The old captain, furious at hearing a command given
aboard his vessel by a boy not yet in his teens, replied to the order,
with an oath, that he would shoot any one who dared touch a rope
without his orders. Having delivered this mandate, he rushed below for
his pistols.

The situation was critical. If the young commander hesitated for a
moment, or showed the least