cene,
short as was the glimpse I obtained; and it had an influence on me for
all my after-life, which, at the time, I could not have suspected. Even
at first when I got back to Bristol, and breathed the moral atmosphere
with which I was surrounded, I longed to be once more away on the free
ocean.

The old brig was soon ready again for sea; but as he was about to sail,
Captain Gale was taken so ill that he could not proceed, and another
master was sent in his stead. I ought to have mentioned that Captain
Helfrich had sold her to some Bristol merchants, and had got a large
ship instead, which traded round Cape Horn. Captain Grindall was a very
plausible man on shore, so he easily deceived the owners; but directly
he got into blue water he took to his spirit bottle, and then cursed and
swore, and brutally tyrannised over everybody under his orders. I had
seen a good deal of cruelty, and injustice, and suffering in the navy,
and had heard of more, but nothing could surpass what that man made his
crew feel while he was out of sight of land. The first mate, Mr
Crosby, who, with Captain Gale, had appeared a quiet sort of man, though
rather sulky and ill-tempered at times, imitated the master's example.

We were bound for Barbadoes, in the West Indies. We had not got
half-way there, when one of the crew fell sick. Poor fellow! he had not
strength to work, but the master and Mr Crosby said that he had, and
that they would make him; so they came down into the forepeak and hauled
him out of his berth, and drove him with a rope's end on deck. He tried
to work, but fell down; so they lashed him to the main-rigging in the
hot sun, and there left him, daring any of us to release him, or to take
him even a drop of water. I wonder that treatment did not kill him.

Two days after that, when there was some sea on, and the brig was
pitching heavily, he fell down again, and Mr Crosby caught sight of
him, and kicked him in the rib; and when the second mate, who was a
quiet young man, and generally frightened at the other two, tried to
interfere, he threatened to knock him down with a handspike. Then,
because poor Taylor called them by some name they deserved, they dragged
him aft by his hair, and then triced him up to the main-rigging by the
heels. I was in the watch below; of the rest of the crew, one was at
the helm, another forward, and the others aloft; so that there was no
one to interfere. At last, the man forward looked