Navy, but a
working "youngster" on board a West India ship, as he informs us in
his "Sketch of my Life," belonging to the house of Hibbert, Purrier,
and Horton, from which he returned to the Triumph at Chatham, a good
practical seaman, but with a horror of the Royal Navy, and a firm
belief in a saying then constant with the seamen, "Aft the most
honour, forward the better man." The next situation we find him in,
will probably shock the delicate feelings of tender mammas, who expect
their sons to be admirals without any apprenticeship; for he is rated
on the books of the Triumph as "_captain's servant_" for one year, two
months, and two days. We may in some measure relieve their minds, by
assuring them, that he did not wear livery, and was never called upon
to brush the captain's coat. But the horrid man submitted even to
lower degradation, in order to get experience in his profession, which
our Reginald Augustus could never have thought of; for he tells us,
that "when the expedition towards the North Pole was fitted out,
although no boys were allowed to go in the ships--as of no use--yet
nothing could prevent my using every interest to go with Captain
Lutwidge in the Carcass, and as I fancied I was to fill a man's place.
I begged I might be his cockswain; which, finding my ardent desire for
going with him, Captain Lutwidge complied with."

And Cockswain Nelson "exerted himself, (when the boats were fitted out
to quit the two ships blocked up in the ice,) to have the command of a
four-oared cutter raised upon, which was given him, with twelve men;
and he prided himself in fancying he could navigate her better than
any other boat in the ship."

And we will back the cockswain to any amount, though he was then only
fifteen, and probably did not weigh more than five stone.

But the vulgarity of the fellow will be the death of us, and our Laura
Matilda will never listen without disgust to the "Death of Nelson"
again; for he tells us, that on the return of the Polar expedition, he
was placed in the Racehorse of twenty guns, with Captain Farmer, and
watched in the foretop!!! And it is probable, during all these
mutations, that he very seldom tasted venison, and drank very little
champagne. But even in the absence of those usual luxuries of the
cockpit, he made himself a thorough seaman; and when serving in the
Worcester sixty-four, with Captain Mark Robinson, he says, with
characteristic, because fully justified pride, "alt