The Project Gutenberg EBook of Poor Jack, by Frederick Marryat

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Title: Poor Jack

Author: Frederick Marryat

Release Date: May 22, 2007 [EBook #21575]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POOR JACK ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

Poor Jack, by Captain Marryat.

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Captain Frederick Marryat was born July 10 1792, and died August 8 1848.
He retired from the British navy in 1828 in order to devote himself to
writing. In the following 20 years he wrote 26 books, many of which are
among the very best of English literature, and some of which are still
in print.

Marryat had an extraordinary gift for the invention of episodes in his
stories. He says somewhere that when he sat down for the day's work, he
never knew what he was going to write. He certainly was a literary
genius.

"Poor Jack" was published in 1840, the sixteenth book to flow from
Marryat's pen. It is principally set on the banks of the River Thames,
as it flows through London, in particular at Greenwich. Many of the
landmarks described still exist, though their use may have changed in
two centuries! Like "Jacob Faithful", which also takes place to a large
extent, though in a different manner, on the London River Thames, the
descriptions of the working of lighters, wherries, and other light
boats, is especially interesting.

This e-text was transcribed in 1998 by Nick Hodson, and was reformatted
in 2003, and again in 2005.

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POOR JACK, BY CAPTAIN FREDERICK MARRYAT.

CHAPTER ONE.

IN WHICH, LIKE MOST PEOPLE WHO TELL THEIR OWN STORIES, I BEGIN WITH THE
HISTORIES OF OTHER PEOPLE.

I have every reason to believe that I was born in the year of our Lord
1786, for more than once I put the question to my father, and he
invariably made the same reply: "Why, Jack, you were launched a few
months before the Druids were turned over to the Melpomene." I have
since ascertained that this remarkable event occurred in January 1787.
But my father always reckoned in this way: